-TV 



ORATIONS 



AND 



SPEECHES. 



ORATIONS 



AND 



SPEECHES, 



ON 



VARIOUS OCCASIONS, 



BY 



EDWARD EVERETT 



BOSTON: 

AMERICAN STATIONERS' COMPANY. 
18 3 6. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1836, by the 

American Stationers' Company, 

In the District Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. 



IT 1 1X1 AM -. DAMRSLI . 

:i'.i (Yaihington Street, Boatoo. 



PREFACE. 



The following collection was made, at the suggestion 
of the respectable Association by whom it is published. 
It was at first intended, that it should consist of the 
materials of which this volume is composed, together 
with a selection of speeches in Congress, and articles 
in the North American Review, by the same author. 
It was found, on examination, that the addresses now 
submitted to the public would, of themselves, form a 
volume of ordinary size, and sufficient variety of matter. 
The collection has, accordingly, been confined to them, 
reserving for a future occasion, if deemed expedient, the 
preparation of another volume, to comprehend the 
speeches, essays, and other miscellaneous compositions 
not contained in this. 

The orations and speeches contained in this volume, 
with the exception of the address delivered before the 
Massachusetts Agricultural Society, were printed at the 
time of their delivery ; but advantage has been taken 
of the opportunity afforded by this republication, to 
revise and correct them, principally in matters of style. 

It will be found, that some of the addresses, being 
on the same or similar occasions or subjects, exhibit a 
considerable similarity in the train of remark, and even 



VI P i; |. 1' ACE. 

in the illustrations. This is particularly the case with 
the orations delivered at Concord and Lexington, <>n 
the 1 9th of April. 1826, and 1835. Such a similarity 
w;is scarcel} to be avoided. The general plan of the 
two addresses is different, but the} necessarilj required 
some description of the same memorable incidents ; and 
;ni\ attempl to avoid the repetition must have been a1 
the sacrifice of topics consecrated to the occasion. 

The author, being desirous, in submitting this collection 
to the public, to make a contribution to the literature of 
the country, which, however humble, mighl at leasl 
possess 1 1 1 c - negative merit of being inoffensive, the 
speeches delivered by him on political occasions have 
been excluded, and nothing of a party character has 
been know ingl} admitted. 

He is fall) aware, that as the addresses which make 
up the volume were in their origin occasional, the 
collection of them cannot he expected to form ;i work 
of permanent interest and importance. It would he all 
he could hope, that the\ should he thought, at the time 
of their separate appearance, not to fall below the line 
of the indulgence usuall} extended to performances of 
this character. He has been induced, more b\ the 
encouragement of partial friends, than his ow a judgment 
of their value, to submit them again to the public, in 
their present form. 

Charlbstown, Mass., Ji \ \ . i- 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 
Oration pronounced at Cambridge, before the Society of 
Phi Beta Kappa, August 26th, 1824, 9 

Oration delivered at Plymouth, December 22d, 1824, 40 

Oration delivered at Concord, April 19th, 1825, 65 

Oration delivered at Cambridge, July 4th, 1826, 95 

Address delivered at Charlestown, in Commemoration of 
Adams and Jefferson, August 1st, 1826, 122 

Oration delivered at Charlestown, July 4th, 1828, 141 

Address delivered at the Erection of a Monument to John 
Harvard, at Charlestown, September 26th, 1828, 163 

Speech at a public Dinner, at Nashville, Tennessee, June 
2d, 1829, 179 

Speech at a public Dinner, at Lexington, Kentucky, June 
17th, 1829, , 186 

Speech at a public Dinner, at the Yellow Springs, Ohio, 
June 29th, 1829, 195 

Address delivered before the Charlestown Lyceum, June 
28th, 1830, being the two hundredth Anniversary of Gov- 
ernor Winthrop's Arrival, 202 

A Discourse on the Importance of Scientific Knowledge to 
Practical Men, and on the Encouragements to its Pur- 
suit, 231 

Lecture on the Working Men's Party, delivered before 
the Charlestown Lyceum, October 6th, 1830, 265 

An Address delivered as the Introduction to the Franklin 
Lectures, in Boston, November 14th, 1831, 288 

Speech before the Colonization Society, in the Capitol, at 
Washington, January 16th, 1832, 309 



VIII (d\ I i: N T - . 

Pago. 

Speech \ r \ public Meeting, held in Hoston, on Behalf of 
Kenyod College, Ohio, Mai 21si 183S, 323 

Speech delivered in Faneuil Hall, Mai 28th, 1833, on the 

Si him roi i H i Hi \ k i k 1 1 1 1 i VIoni mi n r 332 

SPI El H II LIVEBED \ I A Tl.M 1 I RANCE Ml ETING, IK SALEM, JUNE 

l l in. I -:;:: 343 

I >i; \ i'kin i>ki.ivi:iii:ii \ r \\ one i - i i i: . .In.\ tin, 1833, 353 

oration delivered before the phi beta kappa society, in 
\ lle College, New-Haven, August 20th, 1833, 378 

Addki.~- delivered m Brighton, befor] mm Massachusetts 
\(.i; k i 1. 1 i RAL Soi ii i v, October 16th, 1833, 413 

GULOGl OH I. \ I \ ^ I I I 1 . DELIVERED IN FaNEUU II ALL, AT TIM 

Request oi phi SToung Men of Boston, September 6th, 1834, IJ!' 

ob \ i [oh delivered at lexington, on the 19th of april, 1885, 
bi Request ok the Citizens of that Place, 489 

Oration delivered on the Fourth Day of July, 1835, before 
[•he Citizens oi Beverly, without Distinction of Party,. . 525 

Address delivered before the Literary Societies of Am- 
berst College, August 25th, 1835, 555 

Address delivered \r Bloody Brook, in Soi mi Deerfield, 
September 30th, l v :i">. in Commemoration of the Fall of 
■ Mil Flower oi I Issex,' at that Spot, in King Philip's War, 

rEMBEB L8 (0. S.), 1675 587 

Speech on mi - i oi mi Webterh I! \ il-Road, deliver- 
ed in Faneuil H all, October 7th, 1835, ii_>7 



ORATION 



PRONOUNCED AT CAMBRIDGE, BEFORE THE SOCIETY OF PHI BETA 
KAPPA, AUGUST 26, 1824. 



Mr. President and Gentlemen, 

In discharging the honorable trust of being the public organ 
of your sentiments on this occasion, I am anxious that the hour, 
which we here pass together, should be occupied by those reflec- 
tions exclusively, which belong to us as scholars. Our associa- 
tion in this fraternity is academical ; we engaged in it before our 
Alma Mater dismissed us from her venerable roof, to wander in 
the various paths of life ; and we have now come together in the 
academical holidays, from every variety of pursuit, from almost 
every part of our country, to meet on common ground, as the 
brethren of one literary household. The professional cares of life, 
like the conflicting tribes of Greece, have proclaimed to us a short 
armistice, that we may come up in peace to our Olympia. 

But from the wide field of literary speculation, and the innumer- 
able subjects of meditation which arise in it, a selection must be 
made. It has seemed to me proper that we should direct our 
thoughts, not merely to a subject of interest to scholars, but to one, 
which may recommend itself as peculiarly appropriate to us. If 
' that old man eloquent, whom the dishonest victory of Cheronaea 
killed with report,' could devote fifteen years to the composition of 
his Panegyric on Athens, I shall need no excuse to a society of 
American scholars, in choosing for the theme of my address on an 
occasion like this, the peculiar motives to intellectual exertion in 
America. In this subject, that curiosity, which every scholar feels 
jp tracing and comparing the springs of mental activity, is height- 
1 



10 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

ened and dignified, by the important connexion of the inquiry with 

the condition and prospects of our Dative land. 

In the full comprehension of the terms, the motives to intellect- 
ual exertion in a country embrace the most important springs of 
national character. Pursued into its details, the study of these 
springs of national character is often little better than fanciful 
speculation. The question, why Asia has almost always been the 
abode of despotism, and Europe more propitious to liberty ; why 

the Egyptians were abject and melancholy ; the Greeks inventive, 
elegant, and versatile ; the Romans stern, saturnine, and, in matters 
of literature, for the most part servile imitators of a people, whom 
they conquered, despised, and never equalled ; why tribes of 
barbarians from the north and east, not known to differ essentially 
from each other at the time of their settlement in Europe, should 
have laid the foundation of national characters so dissimilar, as 
those of the Spanish, French, German, and English nations; — 
these are questions to which a few general answers may be attempt- 
ed, that will probably be just and safe, only in proportion as they 
are vague and comprehensive, Difficult as it is, even in the indi- 
vidual man, to point out precisely the causes, under the influence 
of which members of the same community -and of the same family. 
placed apparently in the same circumstances, grow up with char- 
acters the most diverse; it is infinitely more difficult to perform 
the same analysis on a subject so vast as a Nation; where it is 
oftentimes first to be settled, what the precise character is, be- 
fore you touch the inquiry into the circumstances by which it was 
formed. 

Hut as, in the case of individual character, there are certain 
Causes of undisputed and powerful operation; there are also in 

national character causes equally undisputed of improvement and 

excellence, on the one hand, and of degeneracy, on the other; 

The philosophical student of histor) may often li\ on circumstances, 

which in their operation on the minds of the people, in furnishing 

the motives and giving the direction to intellectual exertion. ha\e 

hail the chief agency in making them what the} were or are. It 
is in the highest degree curious to trace physical and historical facts 

into theif political, intellectual, and moral consequence - J and to 

mow the climate, the geographical position, and even the 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 



11 



particular topography of a region connect themselves, by evident 
association, with the state of society, its leading pursuits, and char- 
acteristic institutions. 

In the case of other nations, particularly of those, which in the 
great drama of the world, have long since passed from the stage, 
these speculations, however, are often only curious. The opera- 
tion of a tropical climate in enervating and fitting a people for 
despotism ; the influence of a broad river or a lofty chain of moun- 
tains, in arresting the march of conquest or of emigration, and thus 
becoming the boundary not merely of governments, but of languages, 
literature, institutions, and character ; the effect of a quarry of fine 
marble on the progress of the liberal arts ; the agency of popular in- 
stitutions in promoting popular eloquence, and the tremendous reac- 
tion of popular eloquence on the fortunes of a state ; the comparative 
destiny of colonial settlements, of insular states, of tribes fortified 
in nature's Alpine battlements, or scattered over a smiling region of 
olive gardens and vineyards ; these are all topics indeed of rational 
curiosity and liberal speculation, but important only as they may 
illustrate the prospects of our own country. 

It is, therefore, when we turn the inquiry to our country, when 
we survey its features, search its history, and contemplate its insti- 
tutions, to see what the motives are, which are to excite and guide 
the minds of the people ; when we dwell not on a distant, an 
uncertain, an almost forgotten past ; but on an impending future, 
teeming with life and action, toward which we are rapidly and 
daily swept forward, and with which we stand in the dearest con- 
nexion, which can bind the generations of man together ; a future, 
which our own characters, our own actions, our own principles, will 
do something to stamp with glory or shame ; it is then that the 
inquiry becomes practical, momentous, and worthy the attention of 
every patriotic scholar. We then strive, as far as it is in the power 
of philosophical investigation to do it, to unfold our country's rev- 
erend auspices, to cast its great horoscope in the national sky, 
where many stars are waning, and many have set ; to ascertain 
whether the soil which we love, as that where our fathers are laid, 
and we shall presently be laid with them, will be trod in times to 
come by a virtuous, enlightened, and free people. 



12 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

I. The first of the circumstances which are acting and will con- 
tinue to act, with a strong peculiarity among us, and which must 
prove one of the most powerful influences, in exciting and directing 
the intellect of the country, is the new form of political society, 
which has here been devised and established. I shall not wander 
so far from the literary limits of this occasion, nor into a field so 
oft trodden, as the praises of free political institutions. But the 
direct and appropriate influence on mental effort, of a political 
system like our-, has not yet, perhaps, received the attention, which, 
from everj American scholar, it richly deserves. 1 have ventured 
to say, that a new form of polity has here been devised and 
established. The ancient Grecian republics, indeed, were free 
enough within the walls of the single city, of which many of them 
were wholly or chiefly composed; but to these single cities the 
freedom, as Well as the power, was confined. Toward the con- 
federated or tributary states, the government was generally a des- 
potism, more capricious and not less severe, than that of a single 
tyrant. Rome, as a state, was never free; in every period of her 
history, authentic and dubious, royal, republican, and imperial, her 
proud citizens were the slaves of an artful, accomplished, wealthy 
aristocracy ; and nothing but the hard fought battles of her stern 
tribunes mil redeem her memory to the friends of liberty. In 
ancient and modem history, there is no example, before our own, 
of a purely elective and representative systenn It is on an entirely 
novel plan. that, in this country, the whole direction and influence 
of affairs; all the trusts and honors of society ; the power of making, 
abrogating, and administering the laws ; the whole civil authority 
and sway, from the highest post in the government to the smallest 
village trust, are put directly into the market of merit. Whatsoever 

efficacy there is in high station and exalted honors, to call out and 

exercise the pov, ers, either by aw akening the emulation of aspirants, 
or exciting the efforts of incumbents, is here directly exerted on 
the largesl mass of men. with the smallest possible deductions. 
Nothing is bestowed on the chance of birth, nothing Hows through 
the channel of hereditary family interests; but whatever is desired 

mUSl be sought in the wa\ of a broad, fair, personal competition. 

It requin little argument to show, that such a system must most 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 13 

widely and most powerfully have the effect of appealing to 
whatever of energy the land contains ; of searching out, with 
magnetic instinct, in the remotest quarters, the latent ability of its 
children. 

It may be objected, and it has been, that for want of an hereditary 
government, we lose that powerful spring of action which resides 
in the patronage of such a government, and must emanate from the 
crown. With many individuals friendly to our popular institutions, 
it is nevertheless an opinion, that we must consent to lose some- 
thing of the genial influence of princely and royal patronage on 
letters and arts, and find our consolation in the political benefits of 
our free system. It may be doubted, however, whether this view 
be not entirely false. As no one can suppose, that the mere fact 
of the existence of an hereditary government adds anything to the 
resources of a people, whatever is gained by concentrating an active 
patronage, in the metropolis, and in the central administration, must 
be lost by withdrawing the means of patronage from the distant 
portions of the state, and all its subordinate institutions. By 
the healthful action of our representative system, the public 
patronage is made to pervade the empire like the air ; to reach the 
farthest, descend to the lowest, and bind the distant together ; it is 
made not only to cooperate with the successful and assist the pros- 
perous, but to cheer the remote, ' to remember the forgotten, to 
attend to the neglected, to visit the forsaken.' Before the rising 
of our republic in the world, the faculties of men had but one 
weary pilgrimage to perform, — to travel up to courU By an im- 
provement on the Jewish polity, which enjoined on the nation a 
visit thrice a year to the holy city, the great, the munificent, the 
enlightened states of the ancient and modern world have required 
a constant residence on the chosen spot. Provincial has become 
another term for inferior and rude ; and unpolite, which once 
meant only rural, has got to signify, in all our languages, some- 
thing little better than barbarous. But since, in the nature of 
things, a small part only of the population of a large state can, by 
physical possibility, be crowded within the walls of a city, and 
there receive the genial beams of metropolitan favor, it follows that 
the great mass of men are cut off from the operation of some of the 
strongest excitements to exertion. It is rightfully urged then, as a 



11 i \ i.KKTT'S ORATIONS. 

greal advantage of our system, thai the excitements of society are 
diffused as widel) a> its bunions, and search out and bring forward 
w batsoever of ability and zeal arc comprehended within the limits of 
the land. The effeel of this diffusion of privileges is all-powerful. 
Capacity and opportunity, the t\\ in sisters, w bocan scarce subsist but 
with each other, are novi brought together. The people who are 
id choose, and from w hose Dumber are to be chosen, b) their neigh- 
bors, the highest officers of state, infallibly feel an impulse to mental 
activity; they read, think, and compare; they found village 
school^, they collect social libraries, they prepare their children for 
the higher establishments of education. The world has been 
grossly abused on the tendency of institutions perfectly popular. 
From the ill-organized states of antiquity, terrific examples oflicense 
and popular misrule arc quoted, to prove thai man requires to be 
protected from himself, without asking who is to protect him from 
the protector, himself also a man. While from the very first set- 
tlement of America t<» the present day, one of the most prominent 
traits of our character has been to cherish and diffuse the means of 
education. The village school-house, and the village church, are 
the monuments, which the American people have erected to their 
freedom ; to read, and write, and think, are the licentious practices, 
which have characterized our democracy. 

But it will be urged, perhaps, that, though the effect of our insti- 
tution- be to excite the intellect of the nation, the) excite it too 
much in a political direction : that the division and subdivision of 

the country into states and districts, and the equal diffusion through- 
out them of political privileges and powers, whatever favorable 

effect in other wa_\s they may produce, are attended by this evil, — 
thai they kindle a political ambition, where it would not and ought 

not to be felt; and particularly, that they are unfiiendl) in their 
operation on literature, as thej call the aspiring youth, from the 
patient and laborious vigils of the student, to plunge prematurely 
into the conflicts of the Forum* It may, however, be doubted. 
whether there be an) foundation whatever for a charge like this; 
and whether the fact, so far as it is one. thai the talent and ambi- 
tion of the countn incline, at present, to a political course; be not 
owing to causes wholl) unconnected with the free character ol our 
institutions. It need nol be -aid. that the administration ol trw 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 15 

government of a country, whether it be liberal or despotic, is the 
first thing to be provided for. Some persons must be employed in 
making and administering the laws, before any other interest can 
receive attention. Our fathers, the pilgrims, before they left the 
vessel, in which for five months they had been tossed on the ocean ; 
— before setting foot on the new world of their desire ; — drew up 
a simple constitution of government. As this is the first care in the 
order of nature, it ever retains its paramount importance. Society 
must be preserved in its constituted forms, or there is no safety for 
life, no security for property, no permanence for any institution, 
civil, moral, or religious. The first efforts, then, of social man are 
of necessity political. Apart from every call of ambition, honorable 
or selfish, of interest enlarged or mercenary, the care of the gov- 
ernment is the first care of a civilized community. In the early 
stages of social progress, where there is little property and a scanty 
population, the whole strength of the society must be employed in 
its support and defence. Though we are constantly receding from 
these stages, we have not wholly left them. Even our rapidly 
increasing population is, and will for some time remain, small, com- 
pared with the space over which it is diffused ; and this, with the 
total absence of large hereditary fortunes, will create a demand for 
political services, on the one hand, and a necessity of rendering 
them, on the other. 

There is then, no ground for ascribing the political tendency of 
the talent and activity of this country, to an imagined incompati- 
bility of popular institutions with the profound cultivation of letters. 
It is the effect of other causes. Suppose our government were 
changed to-morrow ; that the five points of a strong government 
were introduced, an hereditary sovereign, an order of nobility, an 
established church, a standing army, and a military police ; and 
that these should take place of that admirable system, which now, 
like the genial air, pervades all, supports all, cheers all, and is no- 
where seen. Suppose this change made, and other circumstances 
to remain the same ; our population no more dense, our boundaries 
as wide, and the accumulation of private wealth no more abundant. 
Would there, in the new state of things, be less interest in politics ? 
By the terms of the supposition, the leading class of the commu- 
nity, the nobles, are to be politicians by birth. By the nature of 



16 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

the case, a large portion of the remainder, who gain their livelihood 
by their industry and talents, would be engrossed, not indeed in the 
free political competition, which now prevails, bul in pursuing the 

interests of rival court factions. One class only, the peasantry, 
would remain, which would take less interest in politics than the 
corresponding class in a free state : or rather, this is a new class, 
which invariabl} conn- in with a strong government; and no one 
can seriouslv think the cause of science and literature would be 
promoted, by substituting an European peasantry, in the place of, 
perhaps, the most substantial, uncorrupted population on earth, the 
American yeomanry. Moreover, the evil in question is with us a 
self-correct in g evil. If the career of politics be more open, and 
the temptation to crowd it stronger, competition will spring up, 
numbers will engage in the pursuit: the less able, the less indus- 
trious, the less ambitious must retire, and leave the race to the 
swift and the battle to the strong. But in hereditary governments 
no such remedy exists. One class of society, by the nature of its 
position, must he rulers, magistrates, or politicians. Weak or strong, 
willing or unwilling, they must play the game, though they, as well 
as the people pay the bitter forfeit. The obnoxious king can sel- 
dom shake off the empoisoned purple; he must wear the crown 
of thorns, till it is struck oil' at the scaffold ; and the same artificial 
necessity has obliged generations of nobles, in all the old states of 
Europe, to toil and bleed tor a 

Power too great to keep or to resign. 

Where the compulsion stops short of these afflicting extremities, 
still, under the governments in question, a large portion of the com- 
munity is unavoidably destined to the calling of the courtier, the 
soldier, the part} retainer: to a life of service, intrigue, and court 
attendance; and thousands, and those the prpminenl individuals 
in society, are broughl up to look on a livelihood gained by private 
industry a- base; on study a- the pedant's trade ; on labor as the 
badge of slavery. 1 look in (rain, in institutions like these, for any- 
thing essentially favorable to intellectual progress. On the contrary, 

while they must draw away the talent and ambition of the country, 
quite a- much a- popular institutions can do it, into pursuits foreign 
to the culture of the intellect. thej Qecessaiily doom to obscurity 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. IT 

no small part of the mental energy of the land. For that mental 
energy has been equally diffused, by sterner levellers than ever 
marched in the van of a Revolution, — the nature of man and the 
Providence of God. Sterling native character, strength and quick- 
ness of mind, are not of the number of distinctions and accomplish- 
ments, that human institutions can monopolize within a city's walls. 
In quiet times, they remain and perish in the obscurity, to which a 
false organization of society consigns them. In dangerous, con- 
vulsed, and trying times, they spring up in the fields, in the village 
hamlets, and on the mountain tops, and teach the surprised favor- 
ites of human law, that bright eyes, skilful hands, quick perceptions, 
firm purpose, and brave hearts, are not the exclusive prerogative of 
courts. 

Our popular institutions are therefore favorable to intellectual 
improvement, because their foundation is in dear nature. They do 
not consign the greater part of the social frame to torpidity and 
mortification. They send out a vital nerve to every member of 
the community, by which its talent and power, great or small, are 
brought into living conjunction and strong sympathy with the kin- 
dred intellect of the nation ; and every impression on every part 
vibrates with electric rapidity through the whole. They encourage 
nature to perfect her work ; they make education, the soul's nutri- 
ment, cheap ; they bring up remote and shrinking talent into the 
cheerful field of competition ; in a thousand ways they provide an 
audience for lips, which nature has touched with persuasion ; they 
put a lyre into the hands of genius ; they bestow on all who 
deserve it or seek it, the only patronage worth having, the only 
patronage that ever struck out a spark of ' celestial fire,' — the pa- 
tronage of fair opportunity. This is a day of improved education ; 
new systems of teaching are devised ; modes of instruction, choice 
of studies, adaptation of text books, the whole machinery of means 
has been brought in our day, under severe revision. But were I 
to attempt to point out the most efficacious and comprehensive 
improvement in education, — the engine by which the greatest 
portion of mind could be brought and kept under cultivation, the dis- 
cipline which would reach farthest, sink deepest, and cause the word 
of instruction, not to spread over the surface, like an artificial hue, 
carefully laid on, but to penetrate to the heart and soul of its subjects, 
2 



18 i: \ 1 KK'l T'S ORATIONS. 

it would be popular institutions. Give the people an object in 
promoting education, and the besl methods will infallihk besug* 
gested by that instinctive ingenuity of our nature, which provides 
means for greal and precious ends. Give the people an object in 
promoting education, and the worn hand of labor will be opened 
to the last farthing, thai its children may enjoy means denied to 
itself. This greal contest aboul black hoards and sand tables will 
thru lose something of its importance, and even the exalted names 
oi Hell and Lancaster ma] sink from that \er_\ loftj height, where 
an over hast] admiration has placed them. 

Hut though it be conceded to us, thai the tendency, which is 

alleged to exist in this country toward the political career, is not a 
\ icious eii'ect ol our live institutions, still it may he inquired, w nether 
the new form oi social organization among as is at leasl to produce 
no corresponding modification of our literature ? As the country 
advances, as the population becomes denser, as wealth accumulates, 
as the various occasions of a large, prosperous, and polite commu- 
mt\ call into strong action and rigorous competition the literary 
talent of the country, will no peculiar form or direction he given 
to it- literature, by the nature of it- institutions; To this question 
an answer must, without hesitation, be given in the affirmative. 

Literature as well in its origin, as in its true and only genuine 

character, is but a more perfeel communication of man with man 
and mind with mind. It is a grave, sustained, deliberate utterance 
of fact, of opinion, and feeling : or a free and happy reflection of 
nature, of character, or of manners ; and if it he not thesc.it is poor 
imitation. It raaj . therefore, be assumed as certain, that the pecu- 
liarity of our condition and institutions will be reflected in some 
peculiarity of our literature; bul what that shall be it is as _\ ct too 

early to say. 4 Literary historj informs us of man) studies, which 

* The peculiar natural features of the American continent are of themselves suf- 
ficient to produce some Btrong peculiarity in its literature ; bnt this topic is compre- 
hensive and curious enough for a separate Essay. It baa, I am permitted t>> say, 
been nude die robjeel of one, bj M. <le Salsoar, the miniater from die Colombian 
Republic to die I oiled States, which will ahortlj l>e presented to the fiiends of 
Ann-Hi in letten \a eeaaj on such a subject, from an accomplished citizen of a 
te, established in what was lately a Spanish colony, is itself an admirable 
illustration of the genial influence of popular institutions on Intellectual [mprove- 

DMOfc 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 19 

have been neglected as dangerous to existing governments ; and 
many others which have been cultivated because they were pru- 
dent and safe. We have hardly the means of settling from analogy, 
what direction the mind will most decisively take, when left under 
strong excitements to action, wholly without restraint from the arm 
of power, throughout a vastly extensive and highly prosperous 
country. It is impossible to anticipate what garments our native 
muses will weave for themselves. To foretell our literature would 
be to create it. There was a time before an epic poem, a tragedy, 
or a historical composition had ever been produced by the wit of 
man. It was a time of vast and powerful empires, of populous 
and wealthy cities. Greece had been settled a thousand years, 
before the golden age of her literature began. But these new and 
beautiful forms of human thought and feeling all sprang up under 
the excitement of her free institutions. Before they appeared in 
the world, it would have been idle for the philosopher to form con- 
jectures, as to the direction, which the kindling genius of the age 
was to assume. He, who could form, could and would realize the 
anticipation, and it would cease to be an anticipation. Assuredly, 
epic poetry was invented then and not before, when the gorgeous 
vision of the Iliad, not in its full detail of circumstance, but in the 
dim conception of its leading scenes and bolder features, burst into 
the soul of Homer. Impossible, indeed, were the task, fully to 
foresee the course of the mind, under the influence of institutions 
as new, as peculiar, and far more animating than those of Greece. 
But if, as no one will deny, our political system bring more minds 
into action on equal terms, if it provide a prompter circulation of 
thought throughout the community, if it give weight and emphasis 
to more voices, if it swell to tens of thousands and millions, those 
' sons of emulation, who crowd the narrow strait where honor travels,' 
then it seems not too much to foretell some peculiarity at least, if 
we may not call it improvement, in that literature, which is but the 
voice and utterance of all this mental action. There is little doubt 
that the instrument of communication itself will receive great im- 
provements ; that the written and spoken language will acquire 
force and power ; possibly, that forms of address, wholly new, will 
be struck out, to meet the universal demand for new energy. 
When the improvement or the invention, (whatever it be,) comes, 



20 I \ I Itl'.TT'S ORATIONS. 

it will come unlocked for, as well to its happy author as the world. 
But where great interests are at stake, great concerns rapidly suc- 
ceeding each other, depending on almost innumerable wills, and 
yet requiring to be apprehended at a glance, and explained in a 

word ; where movements are to be given to a vast empire, not by 
transmitting orders, hut l>_\ diffusing opinions, excithcj feeling, and 
touching the electric cord of sympathy, there language and expres- 
sion will become intense, and the old processes of communication 
rausl put on a vigor and a directness, adapted to the aspect of the 
times. Our country is called, as it is. practical ; but this is the 
element for intellectual action. No strongly marked and high 
toned literature ; poetry, eloquence, or ethics, ever appeared but 
in the pressure, the din, and crowd of great interests, great enter- 
prises, and perilous risks, and dazzling rewards. Statesmen, and 
w arriors, and poets, and orators, and artists, start up under one and 
the same excitement. They are all branches of one stock. They 
form, and cheer, and stimulate ; and, what is worth all the rest, 
understand each other ; and it is as truly the sentiment of the stu- 
dent, in the recesses of his cell, as of the soldier in the ranks, 
w hich breathes in the exclamation : 

To all the sons of sense proclaim, 
One glorious hour of crowded life 
Is worth an age without a name. 

Hut we are brought hack to the unfavorable aspect of the sub- 
ject, by being reminded out of history, of the splendid patronage 
which arbitrary governments have bestowed on letters, and which. 
from the nature of the case, can hardly he extended even to the 
highest merit under institutions like our own. We are told of the 
munificent pensions, the rich establishments, the large foundations; 
of the museums erected, the libraries gathered, the endow incuts 
granted, by Ptolemies, Augustuses, and Louises, of ancient and 
modern days. We are asked to remark the fruii of this noble 
patronage; wonders of antiquarian or scientific lore, Thesauruses 

and Corpuses, efforts of erudition, from which the emulous student, 
who would read all things, weigh all things, surpass all tiling. 
recoils in horror; volumes and shelves of volumes, before which 
1 1 1 « * k-eyed patience fold- her hand- in despair. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 



21 



When we have contemplated these things, and turn our thoughts 
back to our poor republican land, to our frugal treasury > and the 
caution with which it is dispensed ; to our modest fortunes, and the 
thrift with which they are hoarded ; to our scanty public libraries, 
and the plain brick walls within which they are deposited ; we 
may be apt to form gloomy auguries of the influence of free politi- 
cal institutions on our literature. It is important then, that we 
examine more carefully the experience of former ages, and see how 
far their institutions, as they have been more or less popular, have 
been more or less marked by displays of intellectual excellence. 
When we make this examination, we shall be gratified to find, that 
the precedents are all in favor of liberty. The greatest efforts of 
human genius have been made, where the nearest approach to free 
institutions has taken place. There shone not forth one ray of intel- 
lectual light, to cheer the long and gloomy ages of the Memphian 
and Babylonian despots. Not a historian, not an orator, not a poet 
is heard of in their annals. When we ask, what was achieved by 
the generations of thinking beings, the millions of men, whose nat- 
ural genius was as bright as that of the Greeks, nay, who forestalled 
the Greeks in the first invention of many of the arts, we are told 
that they built the pyramids of Memphis, the temples of Thebes, 
and the tower of Babylon $ and carried Sesostris and Ninus upon 
their shoulders, from the West of Africa to the Indus. Mark the 
contrast in Greece. With the first emerging of that country into 
the light of political liberty, the poems of Homer appear. Some 
centuries of political misrule and literary darkness follow, and then 
the great constellation of their geniuses seems to rise at once. 
The stormy eloquence and the deep philosophy, the impassioned 
drama and the grave history, were all produced for the entertain- 
ment of that ' fierce democratie ' of Athens. Here then, the genial 
influence of liberty on letters is strongly put to the test. Athens 
was certainly a free state ; free to licentiousness, free to madness. 
The rich were arbitrarily pillaged to defray the expenses of the 
state, the great were banished to appease the envy of their rivals, 
the wise sacrificed to the fury of the populace. It was a state, in 
short, where liberty existed with most of the imperfections, which 
have led men to love and praise despotism. Still, however, it was 
for this lawless, merciless people, that the most chastised and 



22 El KKETT'S ORATIONS. 

accomplished literature, which the world has known, was produced. 
The philosophy <>f Plato was the attraction, which drew to a morn- 
ing's walk in the olive gardens of the academy, the young men of 
this factious city. Those tumultuous assemblies of Athens, the 
\er\ same, which rose in their wrath, and to a man, and clamored 
for the blood of Phocion, required to he addressed, not in the cheap 
extemporaneous rani of modern demagogues, hut in the elaborate 
and thrice repeated (nations of Demosthenes. No! the nohle and 
elegant arts of Greece grew up in do Augustan age, enjoyed neither 
royal nor imperial patronage. Unknown before in the world, 
strangers on the Nile, and strangers on the Euphrates, they sprang 
at once into life, in a region not unlike our own New-England, — 
iron bound, sterile, and free. The imperial astronomers of Chaldsa 
went up almost to the stars in their observatories ; but it was a 
Greek, who first foretold an eclipse, and measured the year. The 
nations of the Easl invented the alphabet, but not a line has reached 
us of profane literature; in any of their languages ; and it is owing 
to the embalming power of Grecian genius, that the invention itself 
Ifts been transmitted to the world. The Egyptian architects could 
erect structures, which, after three thousand five hundred years, are 
Still standing, in their uncouth original majesty ; but it was only on 
the barren soil of Attica, that the beautiful columns of the Par- 
thenon and the Theseum could rest, which are standing also. 

With the decline of liberty in Greece, began the decline of all 
her letters and all her arts, though her tumultuous democracies 
were succeeded h\ liberal and accomplished princes. Compare 
the literature of the Alexandrian with that of the Periclean age; 
lnm cold, pedantic, and imitative ! Compare, I will not sav, the 

axes, the eggs, the altars, and the other frigid devices of the pen- 
sioned wits in the museum at Alexandria ; but compare their best 

productions with those of independent Greece ; Calliinachus w ith 

Pindar. Lycophron with Sophocles, Aristophanes of Byzantium 
with Aristotle, and Apollonius the Rhodian with Homer. When 
we descend t<> Rome, to the Augustan age, the exalted era of 
Maecenas, we find one uniform work of imitation, often of transla- 
tion. The choicest geniuses seldom rise beyond a happy transfu- 
sion of the Grecian masters. Horace translates Alcsus, Terence 
translate - Menander, Lucretius translates Epicurus, Virgil translate - 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 23 

Homer, and Cicero, — I had almost said, — translates Demosthenes 
and Plato. But the soul of liberty did burst forth from the lips of 
Cicero, ' her form had not yet lost all its original brightness,' her 
inspiration produced in him the only specimens of a purely original 
literature, which Rome has transmitted to us. After him, their 
literary history is written in one line of Tacitus ; gliscente adula- 
tione, magna ingenia deterrebantur. The fine arts revived a little 
under the princes of the Flavian house, but never rose higher than 
a successful imitation of the waning excellence of Greece. With 
the princes of this line, the arts of Rome expired, and Constantine 
the great, was obliged to tear down an arch of Trajan for sculp- 
tures, wherewithal to adorn his own. In modem times the question 
is more complicated. Civilized states have multiplied ; political 
institutions have varied in different states, and at different times in 
the same state ; some liberal institutions have existed in the bosom 
of societies otherwise despotic ; and a great addition of new studies 
has been made to the encyclopaedia, which have all been cultivated 
by great minds, and some of which, as the physical and experi- 
mental sciences, have little or no direct connexion with the state 
of liberty. These circumstances perplex, in some degree, the 
inquiry into the effect of free institutions on intellectual improve- 
ment in modern times. There are times and places, where it would 
seem, that the muses, both the gay and the severe, had been trans- 
formed into court ladies. Upon the whole, however, the modern 
history of literature bears but a cold testimony to the genial influ- 
ence of the governments, under which it has grown up. Dante 
and Petrarch composed their beautiful works in exile ; Boccacio 
complains in the most celebrated of his, that he was transfixed 
with the darts of envy and calumny ; Macchiavelli was pursued by 
the party of the Medici, for resisting their tyrannical designs ; 
Guicciardini retired in disgust, to compose his history in voluntary 
exile ; Galileo confessed in the prisons of the Inquisition, that the 
earth did not move ; Ariosto lived in poverty ; and Tasso died in 
want and despair.* Cervantes, after he had immortalized himself 
in his great work, was obliged to write on for bread. The whole 

* Martinelli, in his edition of the Decamerone, cited in the Introduction to Sid- 
ney's Discourses on Government, Edition of 1751, p. 34. 



'2\ EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

French academy was pensioned to crush the great Corneille. Ra- 
cine, after living to see his finest pieces derided as cold and worth- 
less, died of a broken heart. The divine genius of Shakspeare 
owed but little surely to patronage, for it raised him to no higher 
rank than that of a subaltern actor in his own and Ben Jonson's 
plays. The immortal Chancellor was sacrificed to the preservation, 
of a worthless minion, and is said, (falsely 1 trust.) to have begged 
a cup of beer in his old age, and begged in vain. The most val- 
uable of the pieces of Seidell were written in that famous resort of 
great minds, the tower of Ijondon. Milton, surprised by want in 
his infirm old age, sold the first production of the human mind for 
five pounds. The great boast of English philosophy was expelled 
from his place in Oxford, and kept in banishment, 'the king hav- 
ing been given to understand,' to use the words of Lord Sunderland, 
who ordered the expulsion, ' that one Locke has, upon several 
occasions, behaved himself very factiously against the government.' 
I)r\ den sacrificed his genius to the spur of immediate want. Otw ay 
was choked with a morsel of bread, too ravenously swallowed after 
a long fast. Johnson was taken to prison for a debt of five shil- 
lings ; and Burke petitioned for a Professorship at Glasgow, and 
was denied. When we survey these facts, and the innumerable 
others, of which these are but a specimen, we may perhaps con- 
clude that, in whatever way the arbitrary governments of Europe 
have encouraged letters, it has not been in that of a steady, cheer- 
ing patronage. We may think there is abundant reason to 
acknowledge, that the ancient lesson is confirmed by modem expe- 
rience, and that popular institutions are mosl propitious to the full 
and prosperous growth of intellectual excellence. 

II. [f the perfectl) organized system of liberty, which here 
prevails, be thus favorable to intellectual progress, various other 
conditions of our national existence are not less so, particularly the 
extension oi one language, gov< rnment, and character over so vasl 
8 space as the United States of America. Hitherto, in the main, 
the world has seen but two forms of political government, free gov- 
ernments in small states, and arbitrarj governments in large one-,. 
Though various -hade- of both have appeared, at different times, 

in the world, yet on the whole, the political ingenuity of man has 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 25 

never found out the mode of extending liberal institutions beyond 
small districts, or of governing large empires, by any other means 
than the visible demonstration and exercise of absolute power. 
The effect in either case has been unpropitious to the growth of 
intellectual excellence. Free institutions, though favorable to the 
growth of intellectual excellence, are not the only thing needed. 
In order that free institutions may have their full and entire effect, 
in producing the highest attainable degree of intellectual improve- 
ment, they require to be established in an extensive region, and 
over a numerous people. This constitutes a state of society en- 
tirely new among men ; a vast empire, whose institutions are wholly 
popular. While we experience the genial influence of those prin- 
ciples, which belong to all free states, and in proportion as they 
are free ; independence of thought, and the right of expressing it ; 
we are to feel in this country, we and those who succeed us, all 
that excitement, which, in various ways, arises from the reciprocal 
action upon each other of the parts of a great empire. Literature 
as has been already hinted, is the voice of the age and the state. 
The character, energy, and resources of the country, are reflected 
and imaged forth in the conceptions of its great minds. They are 
the organs of the time ; they speak not their own language, they 
scarce think their own thoughts ; but under an impulse like the 
prophetic enthusiasm of old, they must feel and utter the sentiments 
which society inspires. They do not create, they obey the Spirit 
of the Age ; the serene and beautiful spirit descended from the 
highest heaven of liberty, who laughs at our little preconceptions, 
and with the breath of his mouth, sweeps before him the men and 
the nations, that cross his path. By an unconscious instinct, the mind 
in the strong action of its powers, adapts itself to the number and 
complexion of the other minds, with which it is to enter into com- 
munion or conflict. As the voice falls into the key, which is suited 
to the space to be filled, the mind, in the various exercises of its 
creative faculties, strives with curious search for that master-note, 
which will awaken a vibration from the surrounding community, 
and which, if it do not find it, it is itself too often struck dumb. 

For this reason, from the moment in the destiny of nations, that 
they descend from their culminating point, and begin to decline, 
from that moment the voice of creative genius is hushed, and at 
3 



26 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

best, the age of criticism, learning, and imitation, succeeds. When 
Greece ceased to be independent, the forum and the stage became 
mute. The patronage of Macedonian, Alexandrian, and Perga- 
mean princes was lavished in Fain. They could not woo the 
healthy .Muses of Hellas, from the cold mountain tops of Greece, 
to dwell in their gilded halls. Nay, though the fall of greatness, 
the decay of beauty, the waste of Strength, and the wreck of power 
have ever been among the favorite themes of the pensive muse, 
yet not a poet arose in Greece to chant her own elegy; and it is 
after near three centuries, and from Cicero and Sulpicius, that we 
catch the first notes of pious and pathetic lamentation over the 
fallen land of the arts. The freedom and genius of a country are 
invariably gathered into a common tomb, and there 

can only strangers breathe 
The name of that which was beneath. 

It is when we reflect on this power of an auspicious future, that 
we realize the prospect, which smiles upon the intellect of America. 
It may justly be accounted the great peculiarity of ancient days, 
compared with modern, that in antiquity there was, upon the whole, 
but one civilized and literary nation at a time in the world. Art 
and refinement followed in the train of political ascendency, from 
the East to Greece, and from Greece to Rome. In the modern 
world, under the influence of \arious causes, intellectual, political, 
and moral, civilization has been diffused throughout the greater 
part of Europe and America. .Now mark a singular fatality as 
regards the connexion of this enlarged and diffused civilization, 
with the progress of letters and the excitement to intellectual exer- 
tion in any given state. Instead of one sole count r\ . a- in antiquity, 
where the arts and refinements find a home, there are, in modern 
Europe, seven or eighl equally entitled to the general name of cul- 
tivated nations, and in each of which some minds of the first order 

have appeared. And vet, bj the multiplication of languages, an 
obstacle all but insuperable has been thrown in the waj of the free 
progress of genius, in ii^- triumphant course, fjom region to region. 
The muses of Shakspeare and Milton, of Camoens, of Lope de 
\ and Calderon, of Cornettle and Racine, of Dante and Tasso, 
of Ga'lhe and Schiller, are Stranger! to each other. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 27 

This evil was so keenly felt in the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries, that the Latin language was widely adopted as a dialect 
common to scholars. We see men like Luther, Calvin, and Eras- 
mus, Bacon, Grotius, and Thuanus, who could scarce have written 
a line without exciting the admiration of their contemporaries, 
driven to the use of a tongue, which none but the learned could 
understand. For the sake of addressing the scholars of other coun- 
tries, these great men, and others like them, in many of their 
writings, were obliged to cut themselves off from all sympathy with 
the mass of those, whom as patriots they must have wished most 
to instruct. In works of pure science and learned criticism, this is 
of the less consequence ; for, being independent of sentiment, it 
matters less how remote from real life the symbols, by which ideas 
are conveyed. But when we see a writer like Milton, who, as much 
as any other whom England ever produced, was a master of the 
music of his native tongue, who, besides all the eloquence of thought 
and imagery, knew better than any other man how to clothe them, 
according to his own beautiful expression, 

In notes, with many a winding bout 
Of linked sweetness, long drawn out, 
With wanton heed and giddy cunning, 
The melting voice through mazes running, 
Untwisting all the chains that tie 
The hidden soul of harmony; 

when we see a master of English eloquence thus gifted, choosing a 
dead language, the dialect of the closet, a tongue without an echo 
from the hearts of the people, as the vehicle of his defence of that 
people's rights ; asserting the cause of Englishmen in the language, 
as it may be truly called, of Cicero ; we can only measure the 
incongruity, by reflecting what Cicero would himself have thought 
and felt, if called to defend the cause of Roman freedom, not in 
the language of the Roman citizen, but in that of the Chaldeans 
or Assyrians, or some people still farther remote in the history of 
the world. There is little doubt that the prevalence of the Latin 
language among modern scholars, was a great cause not only of 
the slow progress of letters among the lower ranks, but of the stiff- 
ness and constraint formerly visible in the vernacular style of most 



'-'"" EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

scholars themselves. That the reformation in religion advanced 
with such rapidity, is doubtless in no small degree to be attributed 
to the translations of the Scriptures, and the use of liturgies in the 
modern tongues. While the preservation in England of a strange 
language, — 1 will not sin against the majesty of Rome by calling 
it Latin. — in legal acts, down to so late a period as 1730, maj he 
one cause, that the practical forms of administering justice have not 
been made to keep pace with the popular views that have triumphed 
in other things. With the erection of popular institutions under 
Cromwell, among various other legal improvements,* very many of 
which were speedily adopted by our plain dealing forefathers, the 
records of the law were ordered to be kept in English ; ' A novel- 
ty,' says the learned commentator on the English laws, ' which at 
the restoration was no longer continued, practisers having found it 
very difficult to express themselves so concisely or significantly in 
any other language bul Latin. 'f 

Nor are the other remedies more efficacious, which have been 
attempted for the evil of a multiplicity of tongues. Something is 
done by translations, and something by the acquisition of foreign 
languages. But that no effectual transfusion of the higher litera- 
ture of a country can take place, in the way of translation is matter 
of notoriety ; and it is a remark of one of the few, who could have 
courage to make such a remark, Madame de Stael, that it is impos- 
sible fully to comprehend the literature of a foreign tongue. The 
general preference given to Young's Night Thoughts and Ossian 
over all the other English poets, in many parts of the continent of 
Europe, seems to confirm the justice of the observation. 

There is, indeed, an inlluence of exalted genius co-extensive with 
the earth. Something of its power will be felt, in spite of the 
obstacles of different languages, remote regions, and other times. 

Hut its true empire and is lawful sway, are at home, and over the 
hearts of kindred men. A charm, which nothing can borrow, 
nothing counterfeit, nothing dispense with, resides in the simple 
sound of our mother tongue. Not analyzed, nor reasoned upon, it 
unites the earliest associations of life with the maturesl conceptions 

• -• •• a Dumber of them in Lord Somen' Tracts, vol. I. 
t Blackstone's Commentaries, vol. III. 122. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 29 

of the understanding. The heart is willing to open all its avenues 
to the language, in which its infantile caprices were soothed ; and 
by the curious efficacy of the principle of association, it is this echo 
from the feeble dawn of life, which gives to eloquence much of its 
manly power, and to poetry much of its divine charm. This feel- 
ing of the music of our native language is the first intellectual 
capacity that is developed in children, and when by age or misfor- 
tune, 

' the ear is all unstrung, 
Still, still, it loves the lowland tongue.' 

What a noble prospect is opened in this connexion for the circula- 
tion of thought and sentiment in our country ! Instead of that 
multiplicity of dialect, by which mental communication and sympa- 
thy are cut off in the old world, a continually expanding realm is 
opened and opening to American intellect, in the community of our 
language, throughout the wide spread settlements of this continent. 
The enginery of the press will here, for the first time, be brought 
to bear, with all its mighty power, on the minds and hearts of men, 
in exchanging intelligence, and circulating opinions, unchecked by 
diversity of language, over an empire more extensive than the 
whole of Europe. 

And this community of language, all important as it is, is but a 
part of the manifold brotherhood, which unites and will unite the 
growing millions of America. In Europe, the work of international 
alienation, which begins in diversity of language, is carried on and 
consummated by diversity of government, institutions, national de- 
scent, and national prejudices. In crossing the principal rivers, 
channels, and mountains, in that quarter of the world, you are met, 
not only by new tongues, but by new forms of government, new 
associations of ancestry, new and generally hostile objects of national 
boast and pride. While on the other hand, throughout the vast 
regions included within the limits of our Republic, not only the 
same language, but the same laws, the same national government, 
the same republican institutions, and a common ancestral associa- 
tion prevail, and will diffuse themselves. Mankind will here exist, 
move, and act in a kindred mass, such as was never before congre- 
gated on the earth's surface. The necessary consequences of such 



30 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

a cause overpower the imagination. What would he the effect on 
the intellectual state of Europe, at the present day, were all her 
nation^ and tribes amalgamated into one vasl empire, speaking the 
same tongue, united into one political system, and that a free one, 
and opening one broad unobstructed pathway for the interchange 
of thought and feeling, from Lisbon to Archangel ? If effects are 
to bear a constanl proportion to their causes; if the energy of 
thought is to he commensurate with the masses which prompt it, 
and the nw^is it must penetrate; if eloquence is to grow in fervor 
with the weighl of the interests it is to plead, and the grandeur of 
the assemblies it addresses; if efforts rise with the glory that is to 
crown them : in a word, if the faculties of the human mind, as we 
firmly believe, are capable of tension and achievement altogether 
indefinite ; 

Nil actum reputans, dum quid superesset agendum, 

then it is not too much to say, that a new era will open on the 
intellectual world, in the fulfilment of our country's destinies. By 
the sovereign efficacy of the partition of powers between the 
national and state governments, in virtue of which the national 
government is relieved from all the odium of internal administra- 
tion, and the state governments are spared the conflicts of foreign 
politics, all bounds seem removed from the possible extension of 
our country, hut the geographical limits of the continent. Instead 
of growing cumbrous, as it increases in size, there never was a 
moment since the first settlement in Virginia, when the political 
system of America moved with so firm and bold a step as at the 
present day. If there is any faith in our country's auspices, this 
great continent, in no remote futurity, will be filled up with a 
homogeneous population ; with the mightiest kindred people known 
in history : our language will acquire an extension, which no other 
ever possessed ; and the empire of the mind, with nothing to resist 
its sway, will attain an expansion, of which as yet we can but 
partlj conceive. 'The vision is too magnificent to be fully home; 
— a mass of two or three hundred millions, not chained to the oar 
like the same number in China, by a brutalizing despotism, but 
held in their several orbits of nation and state, by the grand repre- 
sentative attraction: bringing to bear on every point the concen* 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 31 

trated energy of such a host ; calling into competition so many 
minds ; uniting into one great national feeling the hearts of so 
many freemen ; all to be guided, persuaded, moved, and swayed, 
by the master spirits of the time ! 

III. Let me not be told that this is a chimerical imagination of 
a future indefinitely removed ; let me not hear repeated the ribaldry 
of an anticipation of ' two thousand years,' — of a vision that re- 
quires for its fulfilment a length of ages beyond the grasp of any 
reasonable computation. It is the last point of peculiarity in our 
condition, to which I invite your attention as affecting the progress 
of intellect, that the country is growing with a rapidity hitherto 
entirely without example in the world. For the two hundred 
years of our existence, the population has doubled itself, in periods 
of less than a quarter of a century. In the infancy of the country, 
and while our numbers remained within the limits of a youthful 
colony, a progress so rapid as this, however important in the prin- 
ciple of growth disclosed, was not yet a circumstance strongly to 
fix the attention. But arrived at a population of ten millions, it is 
a fact of the most overpowering interest, that, within less than 
twenty-five years, these ten millions will have swelled to twenty ; 
that the younger members of this audience will be citizens of the 
largest civilized state on earth ; that in a few years more than one 
century, the American population will equal the fabulous numbers 
of the Chinese empire. This rate of increase has already produced 
the most striking phenomena. A few weeks after the opening of 
the Revolutionary drama at Lexington, the momentous intelligence, 
that the first blood was spilt, reached a party of hunters beyond 
the Alleghanies, who had wandered far into the western wilderness. 
In prophetic commemoration of the glorious event, they gave the 
name of Lexington to the spot of their encampment in the woods. 
That spot is now the capital of a state larger than Massachusetts ; 
from which, in the language of one of her own citizens, whose 
eloquence is the ornament of his country, the tide of emigration 
still farther westward is more fully pouring than from any other in 
the Union.* 

* Mr Clay's Speech on Internal Improvement. 



32 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

I need not say that this astonishing increase of numbers, is by 
no means the limit and measure of our country's growth. Arts, 
agriculture, all the great national interests, all the sources of na- 
tional wealth, are growing in a ratio still more rapid. In our cities 
the intensest activity is apparent ; in the country every spring of 
prosperity, from the smallest improvement in husbandry to the 
construction of canals and rail-roads across the continent, is in 
vigorous action. Abroad, our vessels are beating the pathways of 
the ocean w bite ; on the inland frontier, the nation is journeying 
on, like a healthy giant, with a pace more like romance than 
reality. 

These facts, and thousands like them, form one of those 
peculiarities in our country's condition, which will have the most 
powerful influence on the minds of its children. The population 
of several states of Europe has reached its term. In some it is 
declining, in some stationary ; and in the most prosperous, under 
the extraordinary impulse of the last part of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, it doubles itself but about once in seventy-five years. In 
consequence of this, the process of social transmission is heavy and 
slow. .Men, not adventitiously favored, come late into life, and 
the best years of existence are exhausted in languishing competition. 
The man grows up, and in the stern language of one of their most 
renowned economists,* finds no cover laid for him at Nature's table. 
The smallest official provision is a boon, at which great minds are 
not ashamed to grasp ; the assurance of the most frugal subsistence 
commands the brightest talents and the most laborious studies ; 
poor wages pay for the unremitted Labor of the most curious hands ; 
and it is the smallest part of the population only that is within the 
reach even of these humiliating springs of action. We need not 
labor to contrasl this state of things with the teeming growth and 
nohle expansion of all our institutions and resources. Instead of 
being shut up, as it were, in the prison of a stationary, or a verj 
slowly progressive community, the emulation of our countrymen is 
drawn out and tempted on, by a horizon constantly recediniz before 
them. N( w nations of kindred freemen are springing up in suc- 
<•< ssive periods, shorter even than the active portion of the life of 

- Mr Miiltlius. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 33 

man. ' While we spend our time/ says Burke on this topic, ' in 
deliberating on the mode of governing two millions in America, we 
shall find we have millions more to manage.'* Many individuals 
are in this house, who were arrived at years of discretion when 
these words of Burke were uttered, and the two millions, which 
Great Britain was then to manage, have grown into ten, exceed- 
ingly unmanageable. The most affecting view of this subject is, 
that it puts it in the power of the wise, and good, and great, to 
gather, while they live, the ripest fruits of their labors. Where, in 
human history is to be found a contrast like that, which the last 
fifty years have crowded into the lives of those favored men, who 
raising their hands or their voices, when our little bands were led 
out to the perilous conflict with one of the most powerful empires 
on earth, have lived to be crowned with the highest honors of the 
Republic, which they established ? Honor to their grey hairs, and 
peace and serenity to the evening of their eventful days ! 

Though it may never again be the fortune of our country to 
bring within the compass of half a century a contrast so dazzling 
as this, yet in its grand and steady progress, the career of duty 
and usefulness will be run by all its children, under a constantly 
increasing excitement. The voice, which, in the morning of life, 
shall awaken the patriotic sympathy of the land, will be echoed 
back by a community, incalculably swelled in all its proportions, 
before that voice shall be hushed in death. The writer, by whom 
the noble features of our scenery shall be sketched with a glowing 
pencil, the traits of our romantic early history gathered up with 
filial zeal, and the peculiarities of our character seized with delicate 
perception, cannot mount so entirely and rapidly to success, but 
that ten years will add new millions to the numbers of his 
readers. The American statesman, the orator, whose voice is 
already heard in its supremacy, from Florida to Maine, whose 
intellectual empire already extends beyond the limits of Alexander's, 
has yet new states and new nations starting into being, the willing 
tributaries to his sway. 

This march of our population westward has been attended with 
consequences in some degree novel, in the history of the human 

* Speech on Conciliation with America, March 22, 1775. 

4 



34 kvkrktt's orations. 

mind. It is a fact somewhal difficult of explanation, that the 
refinement of the ancient nations seemed almost wholly devoid of 
an clastic and expansive principle. The arts of Greece were 
enchained to her islands and her coasts ; they did not penetrate the 
interior, at least not in every direction. The language and litera- 
ture of Athens were as much unknown, to the north of Pindus, at 
a distance of two hundred miles from the capital of Grecian refine- 
ment. ;h the) were in Scythia. Thrace, whose mountain tops 
may almost be seen from the porch of the temple of Minerva at 
Sunium, was the proverbial abode of barbarism. Though the 
colonies of Greece were scattered on the coasts of Italy, of France, 
of Spain, and of Africa, no extension of their population far into 
the interior took place, and the arts did not penetrate beyond the 
walls of the cities, where they were cultivated. How different is 
the picture of the diffusion of the arts and improvements of civil- 
ization, from the coast to the interior of America ! Population 
advances westward with a rapidity, which numbers may describe 
indeed, but cannot represent, with any vivacity, to the mind. The 
wilderness, which one year is impassable, is traversed the next by 
the caravans of the industrious emigrants, who go to follow the 
setting Bun, with the language, the institutions, and the arts of 
civilized life. It is not the irruption of wild barbarians, sent to 
\i-it the wrath of God on a degenerate empire; it is not the inroad 
of disciplined banditti, marshalled by the intrigues of ministers 
and kini^. It is the human family, led out to possess its broad 
patrimony. The states and nations, which are springing up in the 
valley of the Missouri, are bound to us. by the dearest tics of a 
common language, a common government, and a common descent 
Before New England can look with coldness on their rising 
myriads, she must forgel thai some of the best of her own blood 
is beating in their (reins; that her hanl_\ children, with their axea 
on their shoulders, have been literally among the pioneers in this 

march of humanity ; that voting as she is. she has become the 

mother of populous states. What generous mind would sacrifice 
to a selfish preservation <>f local preponderance, the delighl of 
beholding civilized nations rising up in the desert; and the lan- 
guage, the manners, the institutions, to which he has heen reared, 
carried with hi- lnni-ehold gods to the foot of the Rocks Moun- 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 35 

tains ? Who can forget that this extension of our territorial limits 
is the extension of the empire of all we hold dear ; of our laws, 
of our character, of the memory of our ancestors, of the great 
achievements in our history ? Whithersoever the sons of the 
thirteen states shall wander, to southern or western climes, they 
will send back their hearts to the rocky shores, the battle fields, 
and the intrepid councils of the Atlantic coast. These are placed 
beyond the reach of vicissitude. They have become already 
matter of history, of poetry, of eloquence : 

The love, where death has set his seal, 
Nor age can chill, nor rival steal, 
Nor falsehood disavow. 

Divisions may spring up, ill blood may burn, parties be formed, 
and interests may seem to clash ; but the great bonds of the nation 
are linked to what is passed. The deeds of the great men, to 
whom this country owes its origin and growth, are a patrimony, I 
know, of which its children will never deprive themselves. As 
long as the Mississippi and the Missouri shall flow, those men and 
those deeds will be remembered on their banks. The sceptre of 
government may go where it will ; but that of patriotic feeling can 
never depart from Judah. In all that mighty region, which is 
drained by the Missouri and its tributary streams — the valley co- 
extensive with the temperate zone — will there be, as long as the 
name of America shall last, a father, that will not take his children 
on his knee and recount to them the events of the twenty-second 
of December, the nineteenth of April, the seventeenth of June, 
and the fourth of July ? 

This then is the theatre, on which the intellect of America is 
to appear, and such the motives to its exertion ; such the mass to 
be influenced by its energies, such the crowd to witness its efforts, 
such the glory to crown its success. If I err, in this happy vision 
of my country's fortunes, 1 thank God for an error so animating. 
If this be false, may I never know the truth. Never may you, my 
friends, be under any other feeling, than that a great, a growing, an 
immeasurably expanding country is calling upon you for your best 
services. The name and character of our Alma Mater have al- 
ready been carried by some of our brethren thousands of miles 



'36 I \ I. RETT'S ORATIONS. 

from her venerable walls: and thousands of miles still farther west- 
ward, the communities of kindred men are fast gathering, whose 
minds and hearts will aei in sympathy with yours. 

The most powerful motives call on us, as scholars, for those 
efforts, v hich our common country demands of all her children. 
Most of us are of that class, who owe whatever of knowledge has 
shone into our minds, to the free and popular institutions of our 
native land. There are few of us, w ho may not be permitted to 
boast, that we have been reared in an honest poverty or a frugal 
competence, and owe every thing to those means of education, 
which are equally open to all. We are summoned to new energy 
and zeal b) the high nature of the experiment we are appointed 
in Providence to make, and the grandeur of the theatre on which 
it is to be performed. When the old world afforded no longer any 
hope, it pleased Heaven to open this last refuge of humanity. 
The attempt has begun, and is going on, far from foreign corruption, 
on the broadest scale, and under the most benignant prospects ; and 
it certainly rests with us to solve the great problem in human 
society, to settle, and that forever, the momentous question — 
whether mankind can be trusted with a purely popular system? 
One might almost think, without extravagance, that the departed 
wise and good of all places and times, are looking down from their 
happy seats to witness what shall now be done by us ; that they 
who lavished their treasures and their blood of old, who labored 
and suffered, who spake and wrote, who fought and perished, in 
the one great cause of Freedom and Truth, are now hanging from 
their orbs on high, over the last solemn experiment of humanity. 
As I have wandered over the spots, once the scene of their labors, 
and mused among the prostrate columns of their Senate Houses 
and Forums, I have seemed almost to hear a voice from the tombs 
of departed ages ; from the sepulchres of the nations, which died 
before the sight. They exhort us. they adjure us to be faithful to 
our trust. The) implore us, l>\ the long trials of struggling hu- 
manity, bj the blessed memory of the departed ; by the dear faith, 

which has been plighted h_\ pure hand-, to the holy cause of truth 

ami man : h\ the awful secrets of the prison houses,. where the 

sons of freed have been immured ; b) the noble he. ids which 

have been brought to the block ; by the wrecks of time, by the 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 37 

eloquent ruins of nations, they conjure us not to quench the light 
which is rising on the world. Greece cries to us, by the convulsed 
lips of her poisoned, dying Demosthenes ; and Rome pleads with 
us, in the mute persuasion of her mangled Tully. They address 
us each and all in the glorious language of Milton, to one, who 
might have canonized his memory in the hearts of the friends of 
liberty, but who did most shamefully betray the cause : ' Reverere 
tantam de te expectationem, spem patriae de te unicam. Reverere 
vultus et vulnera tot fortium virorum, quotquot pro libertate tarn 
strenue decertarunt, manes etiam eorum qui in ipso certamine 
occubuerunt. Reverere exterarum quoque civitatum existimation- 
em de te atque sermones ; quantas res de libertate nostra tam 
fortiter parta, de nostra republica tam gloriose exorta sibi pollicean- 
tur ; quae si tam cito quasi aborta evanuerit, profecto nihil aeque 
dedecorosum huic genti atque periculosum fuerit.'* 

Yes, my friends, such is the exhortation which calls on us to 
exert our powers, to employ our time, and consecrate our labors in 
the cause of our native land. When we engage in that solemn 
study, the history of our race ; when we survey the progress of 
man, from his cradle in the East to these limits of his wandering ; 
when we behold him forever flying westward from civil and 
religious thraldom, over mountains and seas, seeking rest and find- 
ing none, but still pursuing the flying bow of promise, to the 
glittering hills which it spans in Hesperian climes, we cannot but 
exclaim with Bishop Berkeley, the generous prelate of England, 
who bestowed his benefactions, as well as blessings, on our country ; 

Westward the Star of Empire takes its way ; 

The four first acts already past, 
The fifth shall close the drama with the day ; 

Time's noblest offspring is the last. 

In that high romance, if romance it be, in which the great 
minds of antiquity sketched the fortunes of the ages to come, they 
pictured to themselves a favored region beyond the ocean ; a land 
of equal laws and happy men. The primitive poets beheld it in 
the islands of the blest ; the Doric bards fancied it in the Hyper- 

* Milton's Defensio Secunda. 



.'H kvkrett's orations. 

borean regions ; the sage of the academy placed it in the lost 
Atlantis; and even the sterner spirit of Seneca could discern a 
fairer abode of humanity, in distant regions then unknown. We 
look hack upon these uninspired productions, and almost recoil 
limn ilir obligation they imply. By us must these fair visions be 
realized, by us musl be fulfilled these high visions, which hurst in 
living hours upon the longing hearts of the champions of truth. 
There are no more continents or worlds to be' revealed ; Atlantis 
hath arisen from the ocean, the farthest Thule is reached, there 
are no more retreats beyond the sea, no more discoveries, no more 
hopes. 

Here then a mighty work is to be fulfilled, or never, by the race 
of mortals. The man, who looks with tenderness on the sufferings 
of good men in other times ; the descendant of the pilgrims, who 
cherishes the memory of his fathers ; the patriot, who feels an 
honest glow at the majesty of the system of which he is a member ; 
the scholar, who beholds with rapture the long sealed book of un- 
prejudiced truth opened for all to read ; these are they, by whom 
these auspices are to be accomplished. Yes, brethren, it is by the 
intellect of the country, that the mighty mass is to be inspired; 
that its parts are to communicate and sympathize with each other, 
its bright progress to be adorned with becoming refinements, its 
strong sense uttered, its character reflected, its feelings interpreted 
to its own children, to other regions, and to after ages. 

Meantime, the years are rapidk passing awav and gathering 
importance in their course. With the present year, will be com- 
pleted the half century from that most important era in human 
history, the commencement of our revolutionary war. The jubi- 
lee of our national existence is at hand. The space of time, that 
has .lapsed since that momentous date, has laid down in the dust, 
which the blood of many of them had already hallowed, most of 

the great men to whom, under Providence, we owe our national 
existence and privileges. A few still survive among us, to reap 
the n.-li fruits of their labors and sufferings ; and one has yielded 
himself to the united voice of a people, and returned in his age, to 
receive the gratitude of the nation, to whom he devoted his youth. 
,[ '^ recorded on the pages of American history, thai when this 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 39 

friend of our country applied to our commissioners at Paris, in 
1776, for a passage in the first ship they should despatch to Amer- 
ica, they were obliged to answer him, (so low and abject was then 
our dear native land,) that they possessed not the means nor the 
credit sufficient for providing a single vessel, in all the ports of 
France. 'Then,' exclaimed the youthful hero, ' I will provide my 
own ;' and it is a literal fact, that when all America was too poor 
to offer him so much as a passage to her shores, he left, in his 
tender youth, the bosom of home, of happiness, of wealth, of rank, 
to plunge in the dust and blood of our inauspicious struggle ! 

Welcome, friend of our fathers, to our shores ! Happy are our 
eyes that behold those venerable features. Enjoy a triumph, such 
as never conqueror nor monarch enjoyed, the assurance that 
throughout America, there is not a bosom, which does not beat 
with joy and gratitude at the sound of your name. You have 
already met and saluted, or will soon meet, the few that remain, of 
the ardent patriots, prudent counsellors, and brave warriors, with 
whom you were associated in achieving our liberty. But you have 
looked round in vain for the faces of many, who would have lived 
years of pleasure on a day like this, with their old companion in 
arms and brother in peril. Lincoln, and Greene, and Knox, and 
and Hamilton, are gone ; the heroes of Saratoga and Yorktown 
have fallen, before the only foe they could not meet. Above all, 
the first of heroes and of men, the friend of your youth, the more 
than friend of his country, rests in the bosom of the soil he re- 
deemed. On the banks of his Potomac, he lies in glory and 
peace. You will revisit the hospitable shades of Mount Vernon, 
but him whom you venerated as we did, you will not meet at its 
door. His voice of consolation, which reached you in the Austrian 
dungeons, cannot now break its silence, to bid you welcome to his 
own roof. But the grateful children of America will bid you 
welcome, in his name. Welcome, thrice welcome to our shores ; 
and whithersoever throughout the limits of the continent your 
course shall take you, the ear that hears you shall bless you, the 
eye that sees you shall bear witness to you, and every tongue 
exclaim, with heartfelt joy, welcome, welcome La Fayette ! 



ORATION 

DELIVERED AT PLYMOUTH, DECEMBER 22, 1824. 



\ midst all the proud and grateful feelings, which the return of 
this anniversary must inspire, in the bosom of every child of New- 
England, a deep solicitude oppresses me, lest I should fail in doing 
justice to the men, to the day, and to the events, which we are 
met to commemorate. This solicitude, I would hope, is no mere 
personal feeling. I should be unworthy to address you, on this 
occasion, could I, from the selfish desire of winning your applause, 
devote any of the moments of this consecrated day to any cold 
speculations, however ingenious or original. Gladly would 1 give 
utterance to the most familiar commonplaces, could I be so happy 
in doing it, as to excite or strengthen the feelings, which belong, to 
the time and the place. Gladly would I repeat to you those sen- 
timents, which a hundred times have been uttered and welcomed 
on this anniversary; sentiments, whose truth does not change in 
the change of circumstances ; whose power does not wear out with 
time. It is not by pompous epithets or lively antithesis, that the 
exploits of the pilgrims are to lie sel forth b\ their children. We 

can only do this worthily, by repeating the plain tale of their suf- 
ferings, by dwelling on the circumstances under which their memo- 
rable enterprise was executed, and bj cherishing and breathing that 
spirit, which led them across the ocean, and guided them to the 
spot when- we -tand. We need no voice of artificial rhetoric to 
celebrate their names. The bleak and deathlike desolation of 
nature proclaims, with touching eloquence, the fortitude and pa- 

of the meek adventurers. On the bare and wintry fields 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 41 

around us, their exploits are written in characters, which will last, 
and tell their tale to posterity, when brass and marble have crumbled 
into dust. 

The occasion which has called us together is certainly one, to 
which no parallel exists in the history of the world. Other coun- 
tries, and our own also, have their national festivals. They com- 
memorate the birth-days of their illustrious children ; they celebrate 
the foundation of important institutions : momentous events, victo- 
ries, reformations, revolutions awaken, on their anniversaries, the 
grateful and patriotic feelings of posterity. But we commemorate 
the birth-day of all New-England ; the foundation, not of one 
institution, but of all the institutions, the settlements, the establish- 
ments, the communities, the societies, the improvements, compre- 
hended within our broad and happy borders. 

Were it only as an act of rare adventure ; were it a trait in 
foreign, or ancient history ; we should fix upon the achieve- 
ment of our fathers, as one of the noblest deeds, in the annals 
of the world. Were we attracted to it, by no other principle 
than that sympathy we feel, in all the fortunes of our race, it 
could lose nothing, — it must gain, — in the contrast, with whatever 
history or tradition has preserved to us of the wanderings and set- 
tlements of the tribes of man. A continent for the first time, effec- 
tually explored; a vast ocean traversed by men, women, and 
children, voluntarily exiling themselves from the fairest portions of 
the old world ; and a great nation grown up, in the space of two 
centuries, on the foundations so perilously laid, by this pious band : 
— point me to the record, to the tradition, nay to the fiction of any- 
thing, that can enter into competition with it. It is the language 
not of exaggeration, but of truth and soberness to say, that there is 
nothing in the accounts of Phenician, of Grecian, or of Roman 
Colonization, that can stand in the comparison. 

What new importance then, does not the achievement acquire 
for us, when we consider that it was the deed of our fathers ; that 
this grand undertaking was accomplished on the spot where we 
dwell ; that the mighty region they explored is our native land ; 
that the unrivalled enterprise they displayed, is not merely a fact 
proposed to our admiration, but is the source of our being ; that 
their cruel hardships are the spring of our prosperity ; that their 
5 



42 KVKRKTT'S ORATIONS. 

weary banishment gave us a home ; that to their separation from 
tv. r\ thing which is dear and pleasant in life, we owe all the com- 
forts the blessings, the privileges, which make our lot the envy of 
mankind ! 

These are the well know n titles of our ancestors to our gratitude 
and veneration. 

But there seems to me this peculiarity in the nature of their 
enterprise, that its grand and beneficent consequences are, with the 
lapse of time, constantly unfolding themselves, in an extent, and to 
a magnitude, beyond the reach of the most sanguine promise. In 
the frail condition of human affairs, we have generally nothing left 
us to commemorate, hut heroic acts of valor, which have resulted 
in no permanent effect ; great characters, that have struggled nobly, 
but in vain, against the disastrous combinations of the times; and 
brilliant triumphs of truth and justice, rendered unproductive, by 
the complication of untoward and opposite events. It is almost 
the peculiar character of the enterprise of our pilgrim forefathers, — 
successful indeed in its outset, — that it has been more and more 
successful, at every subsequent point in the line of time. Accom- 
plishing all they projected; what they projected was the least part 
of what has been accomplished. Forming a design, in itself grand, 
bold, and even appalling, for the risks and sacrifices it required; 
the fulfilment of that design is the least thing, which in the steady 
progress of events, has (lowed from their counsels and their efforts. 
Did they propose to themselves a refuge beyond the sea, from the 
religious and political tyranny of Europe ? They achieved not 
that alone, but they have opened a wide asylum to all the victims 
of tyranny throughout the world. We ourselves have seen the 
statesmen, the generals, the kings of the elder world, flying for 
protection to the shadow of our institutions. Did they look for a 
retired spot, inoffensive lor its obscuritv, and safe in its remoteness, 
where the little church of Leyden might enjoy the freedom of 
conscience? Behold die mighty regions over which, in peaceful 
conquest, — victoria rim clade, — thej have borne the banners of 
the cross. Did they seek, beneath the protection of trading char- 
ters, to prosecute a frugal commerce iii reimbursement of the 
expenses of their humble establishment : The fleets and navies of 
their descendants are on the farthest ocean : and the wealth of the 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 43 

Indies is now wafted with every tide to the coasts, where with hook 
and line they painfully gathered up their little adventures. In short, 
did they, in their brightest and most sanguine moments, contemplate 
a thrifty, loyal, and prosperous colony, portioned oft", like a younger 
son of the imperial household, to an humble and dutiful distance? 
Behold the spectacle of an independent and powerful Republic, 
founded on the shores where some of those are but lately deceased, 
who saw the first-born of the pilgrims ! 

And shall we stop here ? Is the tale now told ; is the contrast 
now complete ; are our destinies all fulfilled ; are we declining, or 
even stationary ? My friends, 1 tell you, we have but begun ; we 
are in the very morning of our days ; our numbers are but an unit ; 
our national resources but a pittance ; our hopeful achievements in 
the political, the social, and the intellectual nature, are but the 
rudiments of what the children of the Pilgrims must yet attain. If 
there is anything certain in the principles of human and social 
progress ; if there is anything clear in the deductions from past 
history ; if there is any, the least, reliance to be placed on the 
conclusions of reason, in regard to the nature of man, — the existing 
spectacle of our country's growth, magnificent as it is, does not sug- 
gest even an idea of what it must be. I dare adventure the predic- 
tion, that he who shall stand where I stand, two centuries hence, and 
look back on our present condition from a distance equal to that from 
which we contemplate the first settlement of the Pilgrims, will 
sketch a contrast far more astonishing ; and will speak of our times 
as the day of small things, in stronger and juster language, than 
any in which we can depict the poverty and wants of our fathers. 

But we ought to consecrate this day, not to the promise, nor 
even the present blessings of our condition, except so far as these 
are connected with the memory of the Pilgrims. The twenty- 
second of December belongs to them ; and we ought, in consisten- 
cy, to direct our thoughts to the circumstances, under which their 
most astonishing enterprise was achieved. I shall hope to have 
contributed my mite towards our happy celebration, if I can succeed 
in pointing out a few of those circumstances of the first emigration 
to our country, and particularly of the first emigration to New- 
England, from which, under a kind Providence, has flowed not 
only the immediate success of the undertaking, but the astonishing 



44 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

train of consequences auspicious to the cause of liberty, humanity, 
and truth. 

I. Our forefathers regarded, w itli natural terror, the passage of 
the might} dec)). Navigation, notwithstanding the great advances 
which it had made in the sixteenth century, was yet, comparatively 
speaking, in its infancy. The very fact, that voyages of great 
length and hazard were successfully attempted in small vessels, (a 
fact, which, on first view, might seem to show a high degree of 
perfection in the art,) in reality proves that it was as yet but imper- 
fectly understood. That the great Columbus should put to sea, 
for the discovery of a new passage across the Western Ocean to 
India, with two out of three vessels unprovided with decks, may 
indeed be considered the effect, not of ignorance of the art of nav- 
igation, but of hitter necessity. But that Sir Francis Drake, near 
a hundred years afterwards, the first naval commander who ever 
sailed round the earth, enjoying the advantage of the royal patron- 
age, and aided by the fruits of no little personal experience, should 
have embarked on his ravage of circumnavigation, with five vessels, 
of which the largest was of one hundred, and the smallest of fifteen 
tons,* must needs be regarded as proof, that the art of navigation, 
in the generation preceding our ancestors, had not reached that 
point, where the skilful adaptation of means to ends supersedes the 
necessity of extraordinary intrepidity, aided by not less extraordi- 
nary good fortune. It was therefore the first obstacle, which pre- 
sented itself to the project of the Pilgrims, that it was to lie carried 

into execution, across the ocean, which separates our continent 
from the rest of the world. Notwithstanding, however, this cir- 
cumstance, and the natural effect it must have had on their minds. 
there is no doubt, that it is one of those features in our natural 
situation, to which America is indebted, not merely for the imme- 
diate success of the enterprise of settlement, but for much of its 
subsequent prosperity. 

The resl of the world, though nominally divided into three con- 
tinents, in reality consists of bul our. Europe, Asia, and Africa 
are separated by no natural harriers, which it has not been easy in 
every age, for an ambitious invader to pass ; and apart from this 

* Uiographia Britnnnua, III. I T.'!2. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 45 

first consequence of the juxtaposition of their various regions, a 
sympathy of principle and feeling, of policy and passion, may be 
propagated, at all times, even to their remote and seemingly inac- 
cessible communities. The consequence has been, on the whole, 
unfavorable to social progress. The extent of country inhabited 
or rather infested by barbarous tribes, has generally far outweighed 
the civilized portions ; and more than once, in the history of the 
world, refinement, learning, arts, laws, and religion, with the wealth 
and prosperity they have created, have been utterly swept away, 
and the hands moved back on the dial plate of time, in consequence 
of the irruption of savage hordes into civilized regions. Were the 
early annals of the East as amply preserved as those of the Roman 
empire, they would probably present us with accounts of revolu- 
tions, on the Nile and the Euphrates, as disastrous as those, by 
which the civilized world was shaken, in the first centuries of the 
Christian era. Till an ocean interposes its mighty barrier, no cita- 
del of freedom or truth has been long maintained. The magnifi- 
cent temples of Egypt were demolished in the sixth century before 
our Saviour, by the hordes, which Cambyses had collected from 
the steppes of Central Asia. The vineyards of Burgundy were 
wasted in the third century of our era, by roving savages from be- 
yond the Caucasus. In the eleventh century, Gengis Khan and 
his Tartars swept Europe and Asia from the Baltic to the China 
Sea. And Ionia and Attica, the gardens of Greece, are still, under 
the eyes of the leading Christian powers of Europe, beset by re- 
morseless barbarians, whose fathers issued a few centuries ago, from 
the Altai Mountains. 

Nor is it the barbarians alone, who have been tempted by this 
facility of communication, to a career of boundless plunder. The 
Alexanders and the Csesars, the Charlemagnes and the Napoleons, 
the founders of great empires, the aspirers at universal monarchy, 
have been enabled, by the same circumstance, to turn the annals 
of mankind into a tale of war and misery. When we descend to 
the scrutiny of single events, we find that the nations, who have 
most frequently and most immediately suffered, have been those 
most easily approached and overrun ; — and that those who have 
longest or most uniformly maintained their independence, have 



46 



F.VKKETT'S ORATIONS. 



done it by virtue of lofty mountains, wide fivers, or the surrounding 
sea. 

In tlii- stale of things, the three united continents of the old 
world do not contain a single spot, where any grand scheme of 
human improvement could be attempted, witfr a prospect of feir 
experiment and full success, because there is no spot safe from 
foreign interference ; and no member of the general system so 
insignificant, that his motions are not watched with jealousy by all 
the rest. The welfare and progress of man in the most favoreti 
region, instead of proceeding in a free and natural course, depend- 
ent on the organization and condition of that region alone, can 
only reach the point, which may be practicable in the general 
result of an immensely complicated system, made up of a thousand 
jarring members. 

Our country accordingly opened, at the time of its settlement, 
and still opens, a new theatre of human development. — Notwith- 
standing the prodigious extent of commercial intercourse, and the 
wide grasp of naval power among modern states, and their partial 
effect in bringing us into the political system of Europe, we are yei 
essentially strangers to it ; — placed at a distance, which retards, 
and for every injurious purpose, neutralizes all peaceful communi- 
cation, and defies all hostile approach. To this it was owing that 
so little was here felt of the convulsions of the civil wars, which 
followed in England soon after the expulsion of our fathers. To 
this, in a more general \ iew. we are indebted for many of our 
peculiarities a- a nation, for our steady colonial growth, our estab- 
lishment of independence, our escape amidsl the political storms, 
which, during the Last thirtj years, have shaken the empires of the 
earth. — To this we shall still he indebted, and more and more 

indebted, with the progress of our country, for the originality and 

Stability of national character. Hitherto the political effects ol 

our seclusion, behind the mighty veil of waters,*have been the 
m0Sl important. Now. that our political foundations are lirinK 

laid; thai the work of settlement, of colonization, of independence, 

and of union is all done, and happily done, we shall reap, in other 

forms, the salutary fruits of our remoteness from the centres of 
foreign opinion and feeling. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 47 

I say not this in direct disparagement of foreign states ; their 
institutions are doubtless as good, in many cases, as the condition 
of things now admits ; or when at the worst, could not be reme- 
died by any one body, nor by any one generation of men. But 
without disparaging foreign institutions, we may be allowed to 
prefer our own ; to assert their excellence, to seek to maintain 
them on their original foundations, on their true principles, and in 
their unmingled purity. That great word of Independence, which, 
if first uttered in 1776, was most auspiciously anticipated in 1620, 
comprehends much more than a mere absence of foreign jurisdic- 
tion. I could almost say, that if it rested there, it would scarcely 
be worth asserting. In every noble, in every true acceptation, it 
implies not merely an American government, but an American 
character, an American feeling. To the formation of these, noth- 
ing will more powerfully contribute than our geographical distance 
from other parts of the world. 

In these views there is nothing unsocial ; nothing hostile to a 
friendly and improving connexion of distant regions with each 
other, or to the profitable interchange of the commodities, which a 
bountiful Providence has variously scattered over the earth. For 
these and all other desirable ends, the perfection, to which the art 
of navigation is brought, affords abundant means of conquering the 
obstacles of distance. At this moment, the reward of American 
skill is paid by the chieftains of inner Tartary, wrapped up in the 
furs, which in our voyages of circumnavigation, we have collected on 
the North Western Coast of our Continent. The interest on Ameri- 
can capital is paid by the haughty viziers of Anatolia, whose opium 
is cultivated and gathered for our merchants. The wages of Ameri- 
can labor are paid by the princes of Hindostan, whose plantations 
of indigo depend on us for a portion of their market. While 
ambition and policy, by intrigue and bloodshed, are contesting the 
possession of a few square miles of territory, our peaceful com- 
merce has silently extended its jurisdiction from island to island, 
from sea to sea, from continent to continent, till it holds the globe 
in its grasp. 

But while no one can doubt the mutual advantages of a judi- 
ciously conducted commerce, or be insensible of the good, which 
has resulted to the cause of humanity, from the cultivation of a 



48 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

peaceful and friendly intercourse with other climes, it is yet beyond 
question, thai the true principle of American policy, to which the 
whole spirit of our institutions, not less than the geographical features 
of the country, invites us, is separation from Europe. Next to 
onion at home, which ought to be called not so much the essen- 
tial condition of our national existence, as our existence itself, 
separation from all other countries, is the great principle, by which 
we are to prosper. It is toward this that our efforts, public and 
private, ought to strain ; and we shall rise or decline in strength, 
improvement, and worth, as we observe or desert this principle. 
This is the voice of nature, which did not in vain disjoin our con- 
tinent from the old world ; nor reserve it beyond the ocean for fifty 
centuries, only that it might become a common receptacle for the 
exploded principles, the degenerate examples, and the remedi- 
less corruptions of other states. This is the voice of our history, 
which traces every thing excellent in our character and prosperous 
in our fortunes, to dissent, nonconformity, departure, resistance, 
and revolution. This is taught us by the marked peculiarity, the 
wonderful novelty which, whether we will it or not, displays itself 
h our whole physical, political, and social existence. 

And it is a matter of sincere congratulation, that, under the 
healthy operation of natural causes, very partially accelerated by 
legislation, the current of our pursuits and industry, without desert- 
ing its former channels, is throwing a broad and swelling branch 
into the interior. Foreign commerce, the natural employment of 
an enterprising people, whose population is accumulated on the 
si acoast.and w hose neutral sen ices w ere invited by a world in arms, 
i^ daily reverting to a condition of more equal participation among 
the various maritime states, and is in consequence becoming less 
productive to any one. While America remains, and will always 
remain, among the foremost commercial and naval states, an ample 
portion of our resources has already taken a new direction. We 
profited of the dissensions of Europe, which threw her trade into 

our hands. We are now profiting of the pacification of Europe, 

in the application to our own soil, our own mineral and vegetable 

products, our water courses and our general internal resources, of 
a part of the capital thus accumulated. 

This circumstance is, in a general view, most gratifying; inas- 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 49 

much as it creates a new bond of mutual dependence, in the 
variety of our natural gifts, and in the mutual benefits rendered 
each other by the several sectional interests of the country. The 
progress is likely to be permanent and sure, because it has been 
mainly brought about in the natural order of things, and with little 
legislative interference. Within a few years what a happy change 
has taken place ! The substantial clothing of our industrious 
classes is now the growth of the American soil, and the texture of 
the American loom ; the music of the water-wheel is heard on the 
banks of our thousand rural streams ; and enterprise and skill, with 
wealth, refinement, and prosperity in their train, having studded 
the seashore with populous cities, are making their great ' progress ' 
of improvement through the interior, and sowing towns and vil- 
lages, as it were broadcast, through the country ! 

II. If our remote position be so important among the circum- 
stances, which favored the enterprise of our fathers, and have favored 
the growth of their settlements, scarcely less so was the point of 
time at which those settlements were commenced. 

When we cast our eyes over the annals of our race, we find 
them to be filled with a tale of various fortunes ; the rise and fall 
of nations ; — periods of light and darkness ; — of great illumination, 
and of utter obscurity ; — and of all intermediate degrees of intel- 
ligence, cultivation, and liberty. But in the seeming confusion of 
the narrative, our attention is arrested by three more conspicuous 
eras, at unequal distances in the lapse of ages. 

In Egypt we still behold, on the banks of the Nile, the monu- 
ments of a polished age ;— a period, no doubt, of high cultivation, 
and of great promise. Beneath the influence of causes, which are 
lost in the depth of antiquity, but which are doubtless connected 
with the debasing superstitions and political despotism, which pre- 
vailed in that country, this period passed away, and left scarce a 
trace of its existence, beyond the stupendous and mysterious 
structures, — the temples, the obelisks, and the pyramids, — which 
yet bear witness to an age of great power and cultivated art, and 
mock the curiosity of mankind by the records inscrutably carved 
on their surfaces. 

Passing over an interval of one thousand years, we reach the 
second epoch of light and promise. With the progress of freedom 
6 



50 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

in Greece, that of the mind kept pace ; and an age both of 
achievement and of hope succeeded, of which the influence is still 
felt in the world. Hut the greater part of mankind were too bar- 
barous to improve by the example of this favored comer; and 
though the influence of its arts, letters, and civilization was won- 
derfully extensive and durable, — though it seemed to revive at the 
court of the Roman Caesars, and still later, at that of the Arabian 
Caliphs, yet not resting on those popular institutions and popular 
principles, which can alone be permanent because alone natural, it 
slowly died away, and Europe and the world relapsed into bar- 
barity. 

The third great era of our race is the close of the fifteenth 
century. The use of the mariner's compass and the invention of 
the art of printing, had furnished the modern world, with two 
engines of improvement and civilization, either of which was far 
more efficacious than all united, known to antiquity. The reform- 
ation also, about this time, disengaged Christianity, itself one of 
the most powerful instruments of civilization, from those abuses, 
which had hitherto greatly impaired its beneficent influence on 
temporal affairs ; and at this most chosen moment in the annals of 
the world, America was discovered. 

It would not be difficult, by pursuing this analysis, to show that 
the very period, when the settlement of our coasts began, was 
peculiarly auspicious to the foundation of a new and hopeful sys- 
tem. 

Religious reformation was the original principle, which kindled 
the zeal of our pilgrim lathers; as it has been so often acknow- 
ledged to be the master principle of the greatest movements in the 
modern world. The religions of Greece and Rome were portions 
of the political systems of these countries. The Scipios, the Cras- 
suseSj and Julius Caesar himself, were high priests. It was, doubt- 
less, owing in part to this example, that at an early period after the 
first introduction of Christianity, the heads of the church so 
entirely mistook the spirit of this religion, that, in imitation of the 

splendid idolatry, which was passing away, they aimed at a new 
combination of church and state, which received but too much 
countenance from the policj of Constantine. This abuse, with 
ever multiplying and aggravated calamitous consequences, endured, 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 51 

without any effectual check, till the first blow was aimed at the 
supremacy of the papal power, by Philip the Fair of France, in 
the fourteenth century, who laid the foundation of the liberties of 
the Gallican church, by what may be called the Catholic Reform- 
ation. 

After an interval of two hundred years, this example was follow- 
ed and improved upon by the Princes in Germany, who espoused 
the protestant reformation of Luther, and in a still more decisive 
manner by Henry the Eighth in England ; at which period we 
may accordingly date the second great step in the march of reli- 
gious liberty. 

Much more, however, was yet to be effected toward the dissolu- 
tion of the unnatural bond between Church and State. Hitherto 
a domestic was substituted for a foreign yoke, and the rights of 
private conscience had, perhaps, gained but little in the exchange. 
In the middle of the sixteenth century, and among the exiles 
whom the tyranny of Queen Mary had driven to the free cities on 
the Rhine, the ever memorable sect of Puritans arose. On their 
return to England, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, they strenu- 
ously opposed themselves to the erection and peculiarities of the 
English national church. 

Nearly as we have now reached, both in simplicity of principle 
and point of time, to our pilgrim forefathers, there is one more 
purifying process to go through, one more generation to pass away. 
The major part of the Puritans themselves, while they rejected 
some of the forms, and disliked the organization of the English 
church, adhered in substance to the constitution of the Genevan 
church, and their descendants were willing, a century later, to 
accept of an establishment by law in Scotland. 

It remained, therefore, to shake off the last badge of subjection, 
and take the last step in the progress of reform, by asserting the 
independence of each single church. This principle may be con- 
sidered as firmly established, from the time of John Robinson, who 
may be called the father of the Independent churches. His own 
at Leyden was the chief of these, and fidelity to their principles 
was the motive of their departure from Holland, and the occasion 
of their settlement at Plymouth. 

But all may not be disposed to unite, in so exact a specifi- 



52 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

cation of the beginning of the seventeenth century, as the period, 
when religious reform had reached its last perfection, and conse- 
quently, as the era most favorable to the establishment of a new 
and free state. None, however, on a larger view of the subject, 
will be unwilling to allow, that this was the great age of general 
improvement. It was the age, when the discoveries of the Span- 
ish, Portuguese, and English navigators had begun to exert a 
stimulating influence on the world at large; and the old continent 
and the new, like the magnetic poles, commenced those momen- 
tous processes of attraction and repulsion, from which so much of 
the activity of both has since proceeded. It was the period when 
the circulation of knowledge had become general ; and books in all 
languages were in the hands of a very large class in every country. 
The history of Europe, in all its states, shows the extent and 
vehemence of the consequent fermentation. With their new 
engines of improvement and new principles of right, the commu- 
nities of men rushed forward in the course of reform; some with 
firmness and vigor, proportioned to the greatness of the object in 
view, — most with tumult and desperation, proportioned to the 
duration and magnitude of their injuries, — and none with entire 
success. The most that was effected, in the most fortunate states, 
was a compromise between the new claims and the old abuses. 
Absolute kings stipulated to be no longer absolute ; and free citizens 
preferred whal they called petitions of right. In this way, and 
after infinite struggles, a tolerable foundation for considerable prac- 
tical liberty was laid on two principles, in the abstract false, as 
principles of government ; that of acquiescence on the part of the 
sovereign, and prescription in favor of the people. So firmly 
established are these principles, by consent of the statesmen of the 
freest country in Europe, as the best and only foundation of civil 
rights, thai so late as the last years of the eighteenth century, a 
work of ingenuity seldom, of eloquence never, surpassed, was 
written by Mr Burke, to prove, that the people of England have 
not a right to appoint and to remove their rulers: and that it the) 
ever had the right, they deliberately renounced it at what is called 
the glorious revolution of 1688, for themselves and their posterit) 
forever. 

The work of reform is of course rendered exceedingly difficult 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 53 

in Europe, by the length of time for which great abuses have ex- 
isted, and the extent to which these abuses are interwoven with 
the whole system. We cannot but regard it as the plain interpo- 
sition of Providence, that, at the critical point of time, when the 
most powerful springs of improvement were in operation, a chosen 
company of pilgrims, who were actuated by these springs of im- 
provement, in all their strength, who had purchased the privilege 
of dissent at the high price of banishment from the civilized world, 
and who, with the dust of their feet, had shaken off the antiquated 
abuses and false principles, which had been accumulating for 
thousands of years, came over to these distant, unoccupied shores. 
I know not that the work of thorough reform could be safely trusted 
to any other hands. I can credit their disinterestedness, when 
they maintain the equality of ranks ; for no rich forfeitures of 
attainted lords await them in the wilderness. I need not question 
the sincerity with which they assert the rights of conscience ; for 
the plundered treasures of an ancient hierarchy are not to seal 
their doctrine. They rested the edifice of their civil and religious 
liberties on a foundation as pure as the snows around them. Bles- 
sed be the spot, the only one on earth, where such a foundation 
was ever laid ! Blessed be the spot, the only one on earth, where 
man has attempted to establish the good, without beginning with the 
sad, the odious, the often suspicious task of pulling down the bad ! 
III. Under these auspices, the Pilgrims landed on the coast of 
New-England. They found it a region of moderate fertility, 
offering an unsubdued wilderness to the hand of labor, with a 
climate temperate indeed, but compared with that which they had 
left, verging somewhat near to either extreme ; and a soil which 
promised neither gold nor diamonds, nor any thing but what should 
be gained from it by patient industry. This was but a poor reality 
for that dream of oriental luxury, with which America had filled 
the imaginations of men. The visions of Indian wealth, of mines 
of silver and gold, and fisheries of pearl, with which the Spanish 
adventurers in Mexico and Peru had astonished the ears of Europe, 
were but poorly fulfilled on the bleak, rocky, and sterile plains of 
New-England. No doubt, in the beginning of the settlement, 
these circumstances operated unfavorably on the growth of the 
colony. In the nature of things, it is mostly adventurers, who 



54 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

incline to leave their homes and native land, and risk the uncer- 
tainty of another hemisphere; and a climate and soil like ours 
furnished but little attraction to the adventuring class. Captain 
Smith, in his zeal to promote the growth of New-England, is at no 
little pains to show that the want of mineral treasures was amply 
compensated by the abundant fishery of the coast; and having 
sketched in strong colors the prosperity and wealth of the states of 
Holland, be adds, ' Divers. 1 know, may allege many other assist- 
ances, but this is the chiefest mine, and the sea the source of those 
silver streams of their virtue, which hath made them now the very 
miracle of industry, the only pattern of perfection for these affairs ; 
and the henefit of fishing is that pritnum mobile that turns all their 
spheres to this height of plenty, strength, honor and exceed- 
ing great admiration.'* 

While we smile at this overwrought panegyric on the primitive 
resource of our fathers, we cannot but acknowledge that it has 
foundation in truth. It is doubtless to the untempting qualities of 
our climate and soil, and the conditions of industry and frugality, 
on which alone the prosperity of the colony could be secured, that 
we are to look for a full share of the final success of the enterprise. 

To this it is to be ascribed that the country itself was not preoc- 
cupied by a crowded population of savages, like the West India 
Ishi mis and .Mexico, who, placed upon a soil yielding almost spon- 
taneously a superabundance of food, had multiplied into populous 
empires, and made a progress in the arts, which served no other 
purpose, than to give strength and permanence to some of the most 
frightful systems of despotism, that ever afflicted humanity ; sys- 
tems uniting all that is most horrible in depraved civilization and 
wild barbarity. The problem indeed is hard to be solved, in what 
way and by what steps a continent, possessed by sa\age tribes, is 
to be lawfully occupied and colonized by civilized man. But this 

question was divested of much of its practical difficulty by the 
scantiness of the native population, which our fathers found in 
New-England, and the migratory life to which the necessity ol" the 
chare reduced them. It is owing to this, that the annals of New- 
England exhibit no scenes like those which w ere acted in I lispaniola, 

• Smith's GenerallHiatorie, &c. Vol. II. p. ISo, Richmond Edit 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 55 

in Mexico, and Peru ; no tragedies like those of Anacoana, of 
Guatimozin, and of Atahualpa ; no statesman like Bovadilla ; no 
heroes like Pizarro and Cortes ; 

" No dark Ovando, no religious Boyle." 

The qualities of our climate and soil enter largely in other ways 
into that natural basis, on which our prosperity and our freedom 
have been reared. It is these which distinguish the smiling aspect 
of our busy, thriving villages from the lucrative desolation of the 
sugar islands, and all the wide spread, undescribed, indescribable 
miseries of the colonial system of modern Europe, as it has existed 
beyond the barrier of these mighty oceans, in the unvisited, unpro- 
tected, and unavenged recesses of either India. We have had 
abundant reason to be contented with this austere sky, this hard, 
unyielding soil. Poor as it is, it has left us no cause to sigh for the 
luxuries of the tropics, nor to covet the mines of the southern re- 
gions of our hemisphere. Our rough and hardly subdued hill-sides 
and barren plains have produced us that, which neither ores, nor 
spices, nor sweets could purchase, — which would not spring in the 
richest gardens of the despotic East. The compact numbers and 
the strength, the general intelligence and the civilization, which, 
since the world began, were never exhibited beneath the sultry line, 
have been the precious product of this iron bound coast. The 
rocks and the sands, which would yield us neither the cane nor the 
coffee tree, have yielded us, not only an abundance and a growth 
in resources, rarely consistent with the treacherous profusion of 
tropical colonies, but the habits, the manners, the institutions, the 
industrious population, the schools and the churches, beyond all the 
wealth of all the Indies. 

' Man is the nobler growth our soil supplies, 
And souls are ripened in our northern skies.' 

Describe to me a country rich in veins of the precious metals, 
that is traversed by good roads. Inform me of the convenience of 
bridges, where the rivers roll over golden sands. Tell me of a 
thrifty, prosperous village of freemen, in the miserable districts 
where every clod of the earth is kneaded up for diamonds, beneath 
the lash of the task-master. No, never ! while the constitution, 



56 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

not of states, but of human nature, remains the same ; never, while 
the laws, not of civil society, but of God are unrepealed, will there 
be a hardy, virtuous, independent yeomanry, in regions where two 
acres of unfilled banana w ill feed a hundred men. It is idle to call 
thai food, which can never i'vvd a free, intelligent, industrious 
population. It is not food ; it is dust ; it is chaff; it is ashes ; — there 
is no nourishment in it, if it be not carefully sown, and painfully 
reaped, h\ laborious freemen, on their own fee-simple acres. 

IV. Nor ought we to omit to say. that if our forefathers found, 
in the nature of the region to which they emigrated, the most favor- 
able spot for the growth of a free and happy state, they themselves 
sprang from the land, the best adapted to furnish the habits and 
principles essential to the great undertaking. In an age that spec- 
ulates, and speculates to important purpose, on the races of fossil 
animals, of which no living specimen has existed since the deluge, 
and which compares, with curious criticism, the dialects of languages 
which ceased to be spoken a thousand years ago, it cannot be called 
idle to inquire, which of the different countries of modern Europe 
possesses the qualities, that best adapt it to become the parent nation 
of a new and free state. I know not in fact, what more moment- 
ous question in human affairs could be asked, than that which 
regards the most hopeful lineage of a collective empire. But with- 
out engaging in so extensive a discussion, I may presume that then' 
is not one who hears me, that does not feel it a matter of congrat- 
ulation and joy, that our fathers were Englishmen. 

No character is perfect among nations, more than among men ; 
but it must needs be conceded, that after our own country, Eng- 
land is the most favored abode of liberty ; or rather, that besides 
our ow Q, it is the only land w here liberty can be said to exist ; the 
onlj land where the voice of the sovereign is not stronger than 
the voice of the law, We can scarce revolve with patience, the 
idea, thai we mighl have been a Spanish colony, a Portuguese 
colony, or a Dutch colony; we can scarcely compare with cool- 
in—, the inheritance of those institutions, which were transmitted 
to us li_\ our fathers, with that which we musl have received from 
almost any other country ; absolute government, military despot- 
ism, and the holy inquisition. What would have been the condi- 
tion of this flourishing and happ\ land, had these been the in-titu- 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 57 

tions, on which its settlement was founded ? There are, unfortu- 
nately, too many materials for answering this question, in the 
history of the Spanish and Portuguese settlements on the American 
continent, from the first moment of unrelenting waste and desola- 
tion, to the distractions and conflicts, of which we ourselves are the 
witnesses. What hope can there he for the colonies of nations, 
which possess themselves no spring of improvement ; and tolerate 
none in the regions over which they rule ; whose administration 
sets no bright examples of political independence ; whose languages 
send out no reviving lessons of sound and practical science, (afraid 
of nothing that is true,) of manly literature, of free speculation ; but 
repeat, with every ship that crosses the Atlantic, the same debasing 
voice of despotism, credulity, superstition, and slavery? 

What citizen of our republic is not grateful, in the contrast which 
our history presents ? Who does not feel, what reflecting American 
does not acknowledge, the incalculable advantages derived to this 
land, out of the deep foundations of civil, intellectual, and moral 
truth, from which we have drawn in England ? What American 
does not feel proud, that he is descended from the countrymen of 
Bacon, of Newton, and of Locke? Who does not know, that 
while every pulse of civil liberty in the heart of the British empire 
beat warm and full in the bosom of our fathers ; the sobriety, the 
firmness, and the dignity with which the cause of free principles 
struggled into existence here, constantly found encouragement and 
countenance from the sons of liberty there ? Who does not re- 
member, that when the Pilgrims went over the sea, the prayers of 
the faithful British confessors, in all the quarters of their dispersion, 
went over with them, while their aching eyes were strained, till the 
star of hope should go up in the western skies ? And who will 
ever forget, that in that eventful struggle, which severed this mighty 
empire from the British crown, there was not heard, throughout 
our continent in arms, a voice which spoke louder for the rights of 
America, than that of Burke or of Chatham, within the walls of 
the British parliament, and at the foot of the British throne ? No, 
for myself, I can truly say, that after my native land, I feel a ten- 
derness and a reverence for that of my fathers. The pride I take 
in my own country makes me respect that from which we are 
sprung. In touching the soil of England, I seem to return, like a 
7 



58 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

descendant, to the old family seat; — to come back to the abode of 
an aged and venerable parent. I acknowledge this great consan- 
guinity of nations. The sound of my native language beyond the 
sea, is a music to my ear, beyond the richest strains of Tuscan 
softness, or Castilian majesty. I am not yet in a land of strangers, 
while surrounded by the manners, the habits, the forms, in which 
I have been brought up. I wander delighted through a thousand 
scenes, which the historians, the poets, have made familiar to us, — 
of which the names are interwoven with our earliest associations. 
I tread with reverence, the spots, where I can retrace the footsteps 
of our suffering fathers ; the pleasant land of their birth has a claim 
on my heart. It seems to me a classic, yea, a holy land, rich in 
the memory of the great and good; the martyrs of liberty, the 
exiled heralds of truth ; and richer, as the parent of this land of 
promise in the west. 

I am not, — I need not say I am not, — the panegyrist of Eng- 
land. I am not dazzled by her riches, nor aw i id by her power. 
The sceptre, the mitre, and the coronet, — stars, garters, and blue 
ribbons, — seem to me poor things for great men to contend for. 
Nor is my admiration awakened by her armies mustered for the 
battles of Europe; ; her navies, overshadowing the ocean ; nor her 
empire grasping the farthest East. It is these, and the price of 
guilt and blood by which they are maintained, which are the cause 
why no friend of liberty can salute her with undivided affections. 
Bui it is the refuge of free principles, though often persecuted ; the 
school of religious liberty, the more precious for the struggles to 
which it has been called ; the tombs of those who have reflected 
honor on all who speak the English tongue; it is the birth-place 
of our fathers, the home of the Pilgrims; it is these which I love 
and venerate in England. I should feel ashamed of an enthusiasm 
for Italy and Greece, did I not also feel it for a land like this. In 
an American it would seem to me degenerate and ungrateful, to 
hang with passion upon the traces of Homer and Virgil, and follow 
without emotion the nearer and plainer footsteps of Shakspeare and 
Milton ; and I should think him cold in his love for bis native land. 
who felt no melting in his heart for that other native land, which 
holds the ashes of bis forefathers. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 59 

V. But it was not enough, that our fathers were of England : 
the masters of Ireland, and the lords of Hindostan are of England 
too. But our fathers were Englishmen, aggrieved, persecuted, and 
banished. It is a principle, amply borne out by the history of the 
great and powerful nations of the earth, and by that of none more 
than the country of which we speak, that the best fruits and choic- 
est action of the commendable qualities of the national character, 
are to be found on the side of the oppressed few, and not of the 
triumphant many. As in private character, adversity is often re- 
quisite to give a proper direction and temper to strong qualities, so 
the noblest traits of national character, even under the freest and 
most independent of hereditary governments, are commonly to be 
sought in the ranks of a protesting minority, or of a dissenting sect. 
Never was this truth more clearly illustrated than in the settlement 
of New-England. 

Could a common calculation of policy have dictated the terms 
of that settlement, no doubt our foundations would have been laid 
beneath the royal smile. Convoys and navies would have been 
solicited to waft our fathers to the coast ; armies, to defend the 
infant communities ; and the flattering patronage of princes and 
lords, to espouse their interests in the councils of the mother coun- 
try. Happy, that our fathers enjoyed no such patronage ; happy, 
that they fell into no such protecting hands ; happy, that our foun- 
dations were silently and deeply cast in quiet insignificance, 
beneath a charter of banishment, persecution, and contempt ; so 
that when the royal arm was at length outstretched against us, 
instead of a submissive child, tied down by former graSes, it found 
a youthful giant in the land, born amidst hardships, and nourished 
on the rocks, indebted for no favors, and owing no duty. From 
the dark portals of the star chamber, and in the stern text of the 
acts of uniformity, the Pilgrims received a commission, more efficient 
than any that ever bore the royal seal. Their banishment to Hol- 
land was fortunate ; the decline of their little company in the strange 
land was fortunate ; the difficulties which they experienced in get- 
ting the royal consent to banish themselves to this wilderness were 
fortunate ; all the tears and heart breakings of that ever memorable 
parting at Delfthaven, had the happiest influence on the rising des- 
tinies of New-England. All this purified the ranks of the settlers. 



60 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

These rough touches of fortune brushed off the light, uncertain, 
selfish spirits. They made it a grave, solemn, self-denying expe- 
dition. They cast a broad shadow of thought and seriousness over 
the cause, and if this sometimes deepened Into melancholy and 
bitterness, can we find no apology for such a human weakness? 

It is sad indeed to reflect on the disasters, which this little band 
of Pilgrims encountered. Sad to see a portion of them the prey 
of unrelenting cupidity, treacherousl) embarked in an unseaworthy 
ship, which they are soon obliged to abandon, and crowd themselves 
into one vessel ; one hundred persons, besides the ship's company, 
in a vessel of one hundred and sixty tons. One is touched at the 
story of the long, cold, and weary autumnal passage ; of the land- 
ing on the inhospitable rocks at this dismal season ; where they are 
deserted before long by the ship, which had brought them, and 
which seemed their only hold upon the world of fellow men, a 
prey to the elements and to want, and fearfully ignorant of the 
numbers, the power, and the temper of the savage tribes, that filled 
the unexplored continent, upon whose verge they had ventured. 
But all this wroughl together for good. These trials of wandering 
and exile, of the ocean, the winter, the wilderness, and the savage 
foe, were the final assurance of success. It was these thai put far 
aw a v from our fathers' cause all patrician softness, all hereditary 
claims to preeminence. No effeminate nobility crowded into the 
dark and austere ranks of the Pilgrims. No Carr nor \ illiers de- 
sired to lead on the ill-provided band of despised Puritans. No 
well endow ed clergy were on the alert, to quit their cathedrals, and 
set up a pompous hierarchy in the fro/en wilderness. No craving 
governors were anxious to be sent over to our cheerless El Dorados 
of ice and ofsnOW. No, the}' could not say they had eneoin 
patronized, or helped the Pilgrims. They could not afterwards 
fairbj pretend to reap where they had not strewn: and as our fa- 
thers reared this broad and solid fabric with pains and watchfulness, 
unaided. kurU tolerated, it did not fall, when the arm. which had 
never supported, was raised to destroy. 

Methinks I see it now. thai one solitary, adventurous vessel, the 
Ma\ llou er of a forlorn hope, freighted w ith the prospects of a future 
state, and bound across the unknown sea. 1 behold it pursuing, 

with a thou. and misgivings, the uncertain, the tedious V( 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 61 

Suns rise and set, and weeks and months pass, and winter surprises 
them on the deep, but brings them not the sight of the wished for 
shore. I see them now scantily supplied with provisions, crowded 
almost to suffocation in their ill-stored prison, delayed by calms, 
pursuing a circuitous route ; — and now driven in fury before the 
raging tempest, on the high and giddy waves. The awful voice of 
the storm howls through the rigging. The laboring masts seem 
straining from their base ; — the dismal sound of the pumps is 
heard ; — the ship leaps, as it were, madly, from billow to billow ; — 
the ocean breaks, and settles with engulphing floods over the float- 
ing deck, and beats with deadening weight, against the staggered 
vessel. I see them, escaped from these perils, pursuing their all 
but desperate undertaking, and landed at last, after a five months' 
passage, on the ice clad rocks of Plymouth, — weak and weary 
from the voyage,- — poorly armed, scantily provisioned^ depending 
on the charity of their ship-master for a draft of beer on board, 
drinking nothing but water on shore, — without shelter, — without 
means, — surrounded by hostile tribes. Shut now the volume of 
history, and tell me, on any principle of human probability, what 
shall be the fate of this handful of adventurers. Tell me, man of 
military science, in how many months were they all swept oft* by 
the thirty savage tribes, enumerated within the early limits of New- 
England? Tell me, politician, how long did this shadow of a 
colony, on which your conventions and treaties had not smiled, 
languish on the distant coast ? Student of history, compare for me 
the baffled projects, the deserted settlements, the abandoned adven- 
tures, of other times, and find the parallel of this. Was it the 
winter's storm, beating upon the houseless heads of women and 
children ; was it hard labor and spare meals ; — was it disease, — 
was it the tomahawk, — was it the deep malady of a blighted hope, 
a ruined enterprise, and a broken heart, aching in its last moments, 
at the recollection of the loved and left, beyond the sea ; was it 
some, or all of these united, that hurried this forsaken company to 
their melancholy fate ? — And is it possible, that neither of these 
causes, that not all combined, were able to blast this bud of hope ? 
Is it possible, that from a beginning so feeble, so frail, so worthy, 
not so much of admiration as of pity, there has gone forth a pro- 



62 • EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

gress so steady, a growth so wonderful, a reality so important, a 
promise yet to be fulfilled, so glorious ? 

Such, in a very inadequate statement, are some of the circum- 
stances under which the settlement of our country began. The 
historian of .Massachusetts, after Inning given a brief notice of 
Carver, of Bradford, of Winslow, of Brewster, of Standish, and 
others, adds, ' These were the founders of the colony of Plymouth. 
The settlement of this colony occasioned the settlement of Massa- 
chusetts Bay ; which was the source of all the other colonies of 
New-England. Virginia was in a dying state, and seemed to re- 
vive and flourish from the example of New-England. I am not 
preserving from oblivion,' continues he, 'the names of heroes whose 
chief merit is the overthrow of cities, of provinces, and empires; 
but the names of the founders of a flourishing town and colony, if 
not of the whole British empire in America.'* This was the judi- 
cious reflection of Hutchinson, sixty years ago, when the greatest 
tribute to be paid to the Fathers of Plymouth was, that they took 
the lead in colonizing the British possessions in America. What 
then ought to be our emotions, as we meet on this anniversary, upon 
the spot where the first successful foundations of the great Ameri- 
can republic were laid ? 

W ithin a short period, an incident has occurred, which of itself 
connects, in the most gratifying association, the early settlement of 
New-England with the present growth and prosperity of our wide 
extended republic. Within the past year the sovereign hand of 
this great confederacy of States has been extended for the restora- 
tion and security of the harbor, where, on the day we celebrate, 
the germ of the future growth of America was comprehended 
within one weather-beaten vessel, tossing upon the tide, on board 
of which, in the words of Hutchinson, the fathers of New-England 
b\ a solemn instrument, 'formed themselves into a proper demo- 
cracy.' Two centuries only have elapsed, and we behold a great 
American representation convened, from twenty-four independent 
and flourishing republics, taking under their patronage the local 
interests of the spot where our fathers landed, and providing in the 
same acl of appropriation, for the removal of obstacles in the Mis- 

* Hutchinson's IliMorv of Massachusetts Bay, vol. II. Appendix, p. 463. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 63 

sissippi and the repair of Plymouth beach. I know not in what 
words a more beautiful commentary could be written, on our early 
infancy or our happy growth. There were members of the nation- 
al Congress which made that appropriation, I will not say from 
distant states, but from different climates ; from regions which the 
sun in the heavens does not reach in the same hour that he rises on 
us. Happy community of protection ! Glorious brotherhood ! 
Blessed fulfilment of that first timorous hope, that warmed the 
bosoms of our fathers ! 

Nor is it even our mighty territory, to which the influence of 
the principles and example of the fathers of New-England is con- 
fined. While I utter the words, a constitution of republican gov- 
ernment, closely imitated from ours, is going into operation in the 
states of the Mexican confederation, a region more extensive than 
all our territories east of the Mississippi. Farther south, one of 
the provinces of central America, the republic of Guatimala, has 
sent its envoys to solicit a union with us. Will posterity believe, 
that such an offer was made and refused, in the age that saw Eng- 
land and Spain rushing into war, for the possession of a few unin- 
habited islets on the coast of Patagonia ? Pass the isthmus of 
Darien, and we behold the sister republic of Colombia, a realm 
two thirds as large as Europe, ratifying her first solemn treaty of 
amity and commerce with the United States ; while still onward to 
the south, in the valleys of the Chilian Andes, and on the banks of 
La Plata, in states not less vast than those already named, 
constitutions of republican government are in prosperous operation, 
founded on our principles, and modelled on our forms. When our 
commissioners visited those countries in 1817, they found the books 
most universally read among the people, were the constitutions of 
the United States and of the several states, translated into the lan- 
guage of the country ; while the public journals were filled with 
extracts from the celebrated ' Defence ' of these constitutions, writ- 
ten by that venerable descendant of the Pilgrims, who still lives to 
witness the prosperous operation of the governments, which he did 
so much to establish. 

I do not fear that we shall be accused of extravagance in the 
enthusiasm we feel at a train of events of such astonishins: magni- 
tude, novelty, and consequence, connected by associations so inti- 



64 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

mate, with the day we now hail ; with the events we now celebrate ; 
with the pilgrim fathers of New-England. Victims of persecution ! 
how wide an empire acknowledges the sway of your principles ! 
Apostles of liberty ! what millions attest the authenticity of your 
mission ! Meek champions of truth, no stain of private interest or 
of innocent blood is on the spotless garments of your renown ! 
The great continents of America have become, at length, the 
theatre of your achievements; the Atlantic and the Pacific, the 
highways of communication, on which your principles, your institu- 
tions, your example are borne. From the oldest abodes of civili- 
zation, the venerable plains of Greece, to the scarcely explored 
range of the Cordilleras, the impulse you gave at length is felt. 
While other regions revere you as the leaders of this great march 
of humanity, we are met on this joyful day, to offer to your mem- 
ory our tribute of filial affection. The sons and daughters of the 
Pilgrims, we have assembled on the spot where you, our suffering 
fathers, set foot on this happy shore. Happy indeed, it has been 
for us. O that you could have enjoyed those blessings, which you 
prepared for your children ! Could our comfortable homes have 
shielded you from the wintry air; could our abundant harvests 
have supplied you in time of famine ; could the broad shield of our 
beloved country have sheltered you from the visitations of arbitrary 
power! We come, in our prosperity, to remember your trials; 
and here, on the spot where New-England began to be, we come, 
to learn of you, our pilgrim fathers, a deep and lasting lesson of 
virtue, enterprise, patience, zeal, and faith! 



ORATION 

DELIVERED AT CONCORD, APRIL 19, 1825. 



Fellow Citizens, 

The subject which the present occasion presents to our con- 
sideration, is of the highest interest. The appearance of a new 
state in the great family of nations is one of the most important 
topics of reflection, that can ever be addressed to us. In the case 
of America, the magnitude and the difficulty of this subject are im- 
measurably increased. Our progress has been so rapid, the interval 
has been so short between the first plantations in the wilderness 
and the full development of our political system ; there has been 
such a visible agency of single characters in affecting the condition 
of the country, such an almost instantaneous expansion of single 
events into consequences of incalculable importance, that we find 
ourselves deserted by almost all the principles and precedents, 
drawn from the analogy of other states. Men have here seen, 
felt, and acted themselves, what in most other countries has been 
the growth of centuries. 

Take your station for instance on Connecticut river. Every 
thing about you, whatsoever you behold or approach, bears witness, 
that you are a citizen of a powerful and prosperous state. It is 
just seventy years, since the towns, which you now contemplate 
with admiration as the abodes of a numerous, refined, enterprising 
population, safe in the enjoyment of life's best blessings, were 
wasted and burned by the savages of the wilderness ; and their 
inhabitants by hundreds, — the old and the young, the minister of 
the gospel, and the mother with her new born babe, — were waken- 
ed at midnight by the warwhoop, dragged from their beds, and 
8 



66 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

marched with bleeding feet across the snow-clad mountains, — to 
be sold as slaves into the cornfields and kitchens of the French in 
Canada. Go back eighty years farther ; and the same barbarous 
foe is on the skirts of your oldest settlements, — at your own doors. 
As late as 1676, ten or twelve citizens of Concord were slain or 
carried into captivity, who had gone to meet the savage hordes in 
their attack on Sudbury, in which the brave Captain Wadsworth 
and his companions fell. 

These contrasts regard the political strength of our country; 
the growth in national resources presents a case of increase still 
more astonishing, though less adapted to move the feelings. By 
the last valuation, the aggregate property of Massachusetts is esti- 
mated at something less than three hundred millions. By the 
valuation made in 1780, the property of Massachusetts and Maine 
was estimated at only eleven millions ! 

This unexampled rapidity of our national growth, while it gives 
to our history more than the interest of romance, leaves us often in 
doubt, what is to be ascribed to the cooperation of a train of inci- 
dents and characters, following in long succession upon each other j 
and what is to be referred to the vast influence of single important 
events. 

That astonishing incident in human affairs, the Revolution of 
America, as seen on the day of its portentous, or rather let me say, 
of its auspicious commencement, is the theme of our present con- 
sideration. To what shall we direct our thoughts? On the one 
hand, we behold a connexion of events ; the time and circum- 
stances of the original discovery ; the system of colonization ; the 
settlements of the j>il Lfrii us ; their condition, temper, and institu- 
tions; their singular political relation with the mother country; 
their long and doubtful struggle with the savage tribes; their col- 
lisions with the royal governors ; their cooperation in the British 
wars; with all the influences of their geographical and physical 
condition ; uniting to constitute what I may call the national edu- 
cation of America. When we take this Survey, we feel that we 

ought to divide the honors of the Revolution with the great men of 
the colony in ever) generation; with the Win-lows and the Pep- 
perells, the Cookes and the Mathers, the Winthrops and the 
Bradford's, and all who labored and acted in the cabinet, the desk. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 67 

or the field, for the one great cause. On the other hand, when we 
dwell upon the day itself, every thing else seems lost in the com- 
parison. Had our forefathers failed, on that day of trial, which we 
now celebrate ; had their votes and their resolves, (as was taunt- 
ingly predicted on both sides of the Atlantic,) ended in the breath, 
in which they began ; had the rebels laid down their amis, as they 
were commanded ; and the military stores, which had been frugally 
treasured up for this crisis, been, without resistance, destroyed ; — 
then the Revolution had been at an end, or rather never had been 
begun ; the heads of Hancock and Adams and their brave col- 
leagues would have been exposed in ghastly triumph on Temple- 
bar ; a military despotism would have been firmly fixed in the 
colonies ; the patriots of Massachusetts would have been doubly 
despised, the scorn of their enemies, the scorn of their deluded 
countrymen ; the cry of liberty, which they had raised from the 
shore to the mountains, would have been turned back in a cry of 
disdain ; and the heart of this great people, then beating and 
almost bursting for freedom, would have been struck cold and dead, 
and, for aught we can now reason, forever. 

There are those, who object to such a celebration as this, as 
tending to keep up a hostile sentiment toward England. But I 
do not feel the force of this scruple. In the first place, it was not 
England, but the English ministerial party of the day, and a small 
circle in that party, which projected the measures that resulted in 
our Revolution. The rights of America found steady and powerful 
asserters in England. Lord Chatham declared to the House of 
Peers that he was glad America had resisted ; and, alluding to the 
fact that he had a son in the British army, he added, ' that none 
of his blood should serve in this detested cause.' Nay, even the 
ministers that imposed the stamp duty, the measure which hastened 
the spirit of America to a crisis, which it might not have reached 
in a century, Lord Mansfield, the Duke of Grafton, the Earl of 
Shelburne, Lord Camden, rose, one after another, and asserted in 
the House of Lords, that they had no share in the measures which 
were proposed by the very cabinet, of which they were leading 
members. 

But I must go further. Did faithful history compel us to cast 
on all England united the reproach of those measures, which drove 



68 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

our fathers to arms ; and were it, in consequence, the unavoidable 
effect of these celebrations to revive the feelings of revolutionary 
times in the bosoms of the aged ; to kindle those feelings anew, in 
the susceptible hearts of the young ; it would still be our duty, on 
every becoming occasion, in the strongest colore, and in the boldest 
lines we can command, to retrace the picture of the times that 
tried men's souls. We owe it to our fathers, we owe it to our 
children. A pacific and friendly feeling towards England is the 
duty of this nation ; but it is not our only duty, it is not our first 
duty. America owes an earlier and a higher duty to the great and 
good men, who caused her to be a nation ; who, at an expense of 
treasure, a contempt of peril, a prodigality of blood — as pure and 
noble as ever flowed, — of which we can now hardly conceive, 
vindicated to this continent a place among the nations of the earth. 
I cannot consent, out of tenderness to the memory of the Gages, 
the Hutchinsons, the Grenvilles and Norths, the Dartmouths and 
Hillsboroughs, to cast a veil over the labors and the sacrifices of 
the Quincys, the Adamses, the Hancocks, and the Warrens. 

There is not a people on earth so abject, as to think that 
national courtesy requires them to hush up the tale of the glorious 
exploits of their fathers and countrymen. France is at peace with 
Austria and Prussia ; but she does not demolish her beautiful 
bridges, baptized with the names of the battle fields, where Napo- 
leon annihilated their armies ; nor tear down the columns, moulten 
out of the heaps of their captured artillery. England is at peace 
with France and Spain, but does she suppress the names of Trafal- 
gar and the Nile ; does she overthrow the towers of Blenheim 
castle, eternal monuments of the disasters of France ; does she 
tear down from the rafters of her chapels, where they have for 
ages waved in triumph, consecrated to the God of battles, the 
banners of Cressy and Agincourt? — No ; she is wiser; wiser, did 
I say ? she is truer, juster to the memory of her fathers and the 
spirit of her children. The national character, in some of its most 
important elements, must be formed, elevated, and strengthened 
from the materia!- which history presents. Are we to be eternally 
ringing the changes upon .Marathon and Thermopylae ; and going 
back to tin* 1 in obscure texts of Greek and Latin the greal 
exemplars of patriotic virtue? I rejoice that we can find them 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 69 

nearer home, in our own country, on our own soil ; — that strains 
of the noblest sentiment, that ever swelled in the breast of man, 
are breathing to us out of every page of our country's history, in 
the native eloquence of our mother tongue ; — that the colonial and 
the provincial councils of America, exhibit to us models of the 
spirit and character, which gave Greece and Rome their name 
and their praise among the nations. Here we ought to go for our 
instruction ; — the lesson is plain, it is clear, it is applicable. When 
we go to ancient history, we are bewildered with the difference of 
manners and institutions. We are willing to pay our tribute of 
applause to the memory of Leonidas, who fell nobly for his country, 
in the face of the foe. But when we trace him to his home, we 
are confounded at the reflection, that the same Spartan heroism to 
which he sacrificed himself at Thermopylae, would have led him to 
tear his only child, if it happened to be a sickly babe, — the very 
object for which all that is kind and good in man rises up to plead, 
— from the bosom of its mother, and carry it out to be eaten by 
the wolves of Taygetus. We feel a glow of admiration at the 
heroism displayed at Marathon, by the ten thousand champions of 
invaded Greece ; but we cannot forget that the tenth part of the 
number were slaves, unchained from the work-shops and door-posts 
of their masters, to go and fight the battles of freedom. I do not 
mean that these examples are to destroy the interest with which 
we read the history of ancient times ; they possibly increase that 
interest, by the singular contrast they exhibit. But they do warn 
us, if we need the warning, to seek our great practical lessons of 
patriotism at home ; out of the exploits and sacrifices, of which 
our own country is the theatre ; out of the characters of our own 
fathers. Them we know, the high-souled, natural, unaffected, — 
the citizen heroes. We know what happy firesides they left for 
the cheerless camp. We know with what pacific habits they 
dared the perils of the field. There is no mystery, no romance, 
no madness, under the name of chivalry, about them. It is all 
resolute, manly resistance, — for conscience' and liberty's sake, — 
not merely of an overwhelming power, but of all the force of long- 
rooted habits, and the native love of order and peace. 

Above all, their blood calls to us from the soil which we tread ; 
it beats in our veins ; it cries to us, not merely in the thrilling 



70 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

words of one of the first victims in the cause, — ' My sons, scorn to 
be slaves;' — but it cries with a still more moving eloquence, — 
• \1\ sons, forget not your fathers.' Fast, oh, too fast, with all our 
efforts to prevent it. their precious memories are dying away. 
Notwithstanding our numerous written memorials, much of what is 
known of those eventful times dwells but in the recollection of a 
few revered survivors, and with them is rapidly perishing, unre- 
corded and irretrievable. How many prudent counsels, conceived 
in perplexed times ; how many heart-stirring words, uttered when 
liberty was treason : how many brave and heroic deeds, performed 
when the halter, not the laurel, was the promised meed of patriotic 
daring, — are already lost and forgotten in the graves of their authors. 
How little do we, — although we have been permitted to hold con- 
verse with the venerable remnants of that day, — how little do we 
know of their dark and anxious hours ; of their secret meditations; 
of the hurried and perilous events of the momentous struggle. 
And while they are dropping round us like the leaves of autumn, 
and scarce a week passes that does not call away some member of 
the veteran ranks, already so sadly thinned, shall we make no 
effort to hand down the traditions of their day to our children ; to 
pass the torch of liberty, which we received in all the splendor of 
its first enkindling, bright and flaming, to those who stand next us 
in the line : so that when we shall come to be gathered to the dust 
where our fathers are laid, we may say to our sons and our grand- 
sons, • If we did not amass, we have not squandered your inherit- 
ance of glory ? ' 

Let US then faithfullj go hack to those all-important days. Let 
us commemorate the events, with w hich the momentous revolution- 
ary, crisis was brought on; let us gather up the traditions which 
still exist ; let us show the world, that if we are not called to follow 
the example of our fathers, we are at least not insensible to the 
worth of their characters ; nor indifferent to the sacrifices and trials, 
by which they purchased our prosperity. 

Time would fail us to recount the measures bj which the wa) 
was prepared for the Revolution ; — the stamp act ; its repeal, with 
the declaration of the right to tax America ; the landing of troops 
in Boston, beneath the batteries of fourteen vessels of war. him.: 
broadside to the town, with springs on their cables, their guns 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 71 

loaded, and matches smoking ; the repeated insults, and finally the 
massacre of the fifth of March, resulting from this military occu- 
pation ; and the Boston Port-Bill, by which the final catastrophe 
was hurried on. Nor can we dwell upon the appointment at Salem, 
on the seventeenth of June, 1774, of the delegates to the conti- 
nental congress ; of the formation at Salem, in the following Octo- 
ber, of the provincial congress ; of the decided measures, which 
were taken by that noble assembly, at Concord and at Cambridge ; 
of the preparations they made against the worst, by organizing the 
militia, providing stores, and appointing commanders. All this 
was done by the close of the year 1774. 

At length the memorable year of 1775 arrived. The plunder 
of the provincial stores at Medford, and the attempt to seize the 
cannon at Salem, had produced a highly irritated state of the pub- 
lic mind. The friends of our rights in England made a vigorous 
effort, in the month of March, to avert the crisis that impended. 
On the twenty-second of that month, Mr Burke spoke the last 
word of conciliation and peace. He spoke it in a tone, and with a 
power befitting the occasion and the man ; — he spoke it to the 
north-west wind. Eight days after, at that season of the year 
when the prudent New-England husbandman repairs the enclosures 
of his field, for the protection of the fruits of nature's bounty which 
ere long will cover them, General Gage sent out a party of eleven 
hundred men to overthrow the stone walls in the neighborhood of 
Boston, by way of opening and levelling the arena for the bloody 
contest he designed to bring on. With the same view, in the 
months of February and March, his officers were sent in disguise 
to traverse the country, to make military surveys of its roads and 
passes, to obtain accounts of the stores at Concord and Worcester, 
and to communicate with the small number of disaffected Ameri- 
cans. These disguised officers were here at Concord, on the 
twentieth of March ; and received treacherous or unsuspecting 
information of the places where the provincial stores were concealed. 
I mention this, only to show, that our fathers, in their arduous 
contest, had every thing to contend with ; secret as well as open 
foes ; treachery in the cabinet, as well as power in the field. But 
I need not add, that they possessed not only the courage and the 
resolution, but the vigilance and care demanded for the crisis. In 



72 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

November, 1774, a society had been formed at Boston, principally 
of the mechanics of that town, — a class of men to whom the rev- 
olutionary cause was as deeply indebted, as to any other in Amer- 
ica, — for the express purpose of closely watching the movements 
of the open and secret foes of the country. In the long and 
dreary nights of a New-England winter, they patrolled the streets ; 
and not a movement, which concerned the cause, escaped their 
tdgilance. Not a measure of the royal governor, but was in their 
possession, in a few hours after it was communicated to his confi- 
dential officers. Nor was manly patriotism alone aroused in the 
cause. The daughters of America were inspired with the same 
noble temper that animated their fathers, their husbands, and their 
brethren. The historian tells us, that the first intimation commu- 
nicated to the patriots, of the impending commencement of hostil- 
ities, came from a ' daughter of liberty, unequally yoked with an 
enemy of her country's rights.' 

With all these warnings, and all the vigilance with which the 
royal troops were watched, none supposed the fatal moment was 
hurrying on so rapidly. On Saturday, April fifteenth, the provin- 
cial Congress adjourned their session in this place, to meet on the 
tenth of May. On the very same day, Saturday, the fifteenth of 
April, the companies of grenadiers and light infantry in Boston, 
the flower not merely of the royal garrison, but of the British army, 
were taken off their regular duty, under the pretence of learning 
a new military exercise. At the midnight following, the boats of 
the transport ship-, which had been previously repaired, were 
launched, and moored for safety under the sterns of the vessels of 
war. Not one of these movements, — least of all, that which took 
place beneath the shades of midnight, — was unobserved by the 
vigilant sons of liberty. The mexl morning Colonel Paul Kevere, 
a verj active member of the patriotic society just mentioned, was 
despatched by Dr Joseph Warren to John Hancock and Samuel 
Adams, then at Lexington, whose seizure was threatened by the 
royal governor. So early did these distinguished patriots receive 
the intelligence, that preparations for an important movemenl were 
on foot. Justly considering, however, that some object beside- the 
seizure of two individuals was probably designed, in the movement 
of so large a force, they counselled the Committee of Safety to 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 73 

order the distribution into the neighboring towns, of the stores 
collected at Concord. Colonel Revere, on his return from this 
excursion on the sixteenth of April, in order to guard against any 
accident, which might make it impossible at the last moment to 
give information from Boston of the departure of the troops, con- 
certed with his friends in Charlestown, that whenever the British 
forces should embark in their boats to cross into the country, two 
lanterns should be lighted in the North Church steeple, and one, 
should they march out by Roxbury. 

Thus was the meditated blow prepared for before it was struck ; 
and we almost smile at the tardy prudence of the British comman- 
der, who, on Tuesday the eighteenth of April, despatched ten 
sergeants, who were to dine at Cambridge, and at nightfall scatter 
themselves on the roads from Boston to Concord, to prevent notice 
of the projected expedition from reaching the country. 

At length the momentous hour arrives, as big with consequences 
to man, as any that ever struck in his history. The darkness of 
night is still to shroud the rash and fatal measures, with which the 
liberty of America is hastened on. The highest officers in the 
British army are as yet ignorant of the nature of the meditated 
blow. At nine o'clock in the evening of the eighteenth, Lord 
Percy is sent for by the governor, to receive the information of the 
design. On his way back to his lodgings, he finds the very move- 
ments, which had been just communicated to him in confidence by 
the commander in chief, a subject of conversation in a group of 
patriotic citizens in the street. He hastens back to General Gage, 
and tells him he is betrayed ; and orders are instantly given to 
permit no American to leave the town. But the order is five min- 
utes too late. Dr Warren, the President of the Committee of 
Safety, though he had returned at nightfall from the meeting at 
West Cambridge, was already in possession of the whole design ; 
and instantly despatched two messengers to Lexington, Mr William 
Dawes, who went out by Roxbury, and Colonel Paul Revere, who 
crossed to Charlestown. The Colonel received this summons 
at ten o'clock on Tuesday night ; the lanterns were immediate- 
ly lighted up in North Church steeple ; and in this way, before 
a man of the soldiery was embarked in the boats, the news of 
9 



74 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

their coming was travelling with the rapidity of light, through 
the country.* 

Having accomplished this precautionary measure, Colonel Re- 
vere repaired to the north part of the town, where he constantly 
kept a boat in readiness, in which he was now rowed by two friends 
across the river, a little to the eastward of the spot where the 
Somerset man-of-war was moored, between Boston and Charles- 
tow 11. It was then young flood, the ship was swinging round upon 
the tide, and the moon was just rising upon this midnight scene of 
solemn anticipation. Colonel Revere was safely landed in Charles- 
tow n, where his signals had already been observed. He procured 
a horse from Deacon Larkin for the further pursuit of his errand. 
That he would not be permitted to accomplish it without risk of 
interruption was evident from the information which he received 
from Mr Richard Devens, a member of the Committee of Safety, 
that on his way from West Cambridge, where the Committee sat, 
he had encountered several British officers, well armed and mount- 
ed, going up the road. 

At eleven o'clock, Colonel Revere started upon his errand. 
After passing Charlestown neck, he saw two men on horseback 
under a tree. On approaching them, he perceived them by the 
light of the moon to be British officers. One of them immediately 
tried to intercept, and the other to seize him. The Colonel instantly 
turned back toward Charlestown, and then struck into the Medford 
road. The officer in pursuit of him, endeavoring to cut him off, 
plunged into a clay pond, in the corner between the two roads, and 
the Colonel escaped. He according pursued his way to Medford, 
awoke the captain of the minute men there, and giving the alarm 
at every house on the road, passed on through West Cambridge to 
Lexington. There he delivered his message to Messrs Hancock 
and Adams.f and there also he was shortly after joined by Mr 
William Dawes, the messenger who had gone out by Roxbury. 

After staying a short time at Lexington, Messrs Revere and 
Dawe<. at aboul one o'clock of the morning of the nineteenth ot 
April, started lor Concord, to communicate the intelligence there. 

* See note A. t See note B. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 75 

They were soon overtaken on the way by Dr Samuel Prescott of 
Concord, who joined them in giving the alarm at every house on 
the road. About half way from Lexington to Concord, while 
Dawes and Prescott were alarming a house on the road, Revere, 
being about one hundred rods in advance, saw two officers in the 
road, of the same appearance as those he had escaped in Charles- 
town. He called to his companions to assist him in forcing his 
way through them, but was instantly surrounded by four officers. 
These officers had previously thrown down the wall of an adjoining 
field, and the Americans, prevented from forcing their way onward, 
passed into the field. Dr Prescott, although the reins of his horse 
had been cut in the struggle with the officers, succeeded, by leap- 
ing a stone wall, in making his escape from the field, and reaching 
Concord. Revere aimed at a wood, but was there encountered 
by six more officers, and was with his companion made prisoner. 
The British officers, who had already seized three other Americans, 
having learned from their prisoners, that the whole country was 
alarmed, thought it best for their own safety to hasten back, taking 
their prisoners with them. Near Lexington meetinghouse, on their 
return, the British officers heard the militia, who were on parade, 
firing a volley of guns. Terrified at this, they compelled Revere 
to give up his horse, and then pushing forward at a full gallop, 
escaped down the road. 

The morning was now advanced to about four o'clock, nor was 
it then known at Lexington, that the British were so near at hand. 
Colonel Revere again sought Messrs Hancock and Adams at the 
house of the Reverend Mr Clark, and it was thought expedient by 
their friends, who had kept watch there during the night, that these 
eminent patriots should remove toward Woburn. Having attend- 
ed them to a house on the Woburn road, where they proposed to 
stop, Colonel Revere returned to Lexington to watch the progress 
of events. He soon met a person at full gallop, who informed him 
that the British troops were coming up the road. Hastening now 
to the public house, to secure some papers of Messrs Hancock and 
Adams, Colonel Revere saw the British troops pressing forward in 
full array. 

It was now seven hours since these troops were put in motion. 
They were mustered at ten o'clock of the night preceding, on the 



76 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

Boston Common, and embarked, to the number of eight hundred 
grenadiers and light infantry, in the boats of the British squadron. 
They landed at Phipps' Farm, a little to the south of Lechmere's 
Point, and on disembarking, a day's pro\ ision was dealt out to them. 
Pursuing the path across the marshes, they emerged into the old 
Charlestown and West Cambridge road. 

And here let us pause a moment in the narration, to ask, who 
are the men, and what is the cause ? Is it an army of Frenchmen 
and Canadians, who in earlier days had often run the line between 
them and us. with havoc and fire, and who have now come to pay 
back the debt of recent defeat and subjugation ? Or is it their an- 
cient ally of the woods, the stealthy savage, — borne in his light 
canoe, with muffled oars, over the midnight waters, — creeping like 
the felon wolf through our villages, that he may start up at dawn, 
to wage a war of surprise, of plunder, and of horror against the 
slumbering cradle and the defenceless fireside ? O no ! It is the 
disciplined armies of a brave, a christian, a kindred people; led by 
gallant officers, the choice sons of England : and they are going to 
seize, and secure for the halter, men whose crime is, that they have 
dared to utter in the English tongue, on this side of the ocean, the 
principles which irave, and irive England her standing among the 
nations; they are going to plunge their swords in the breasts of 
men, who fifteen years before, on the plains of Abraham, stood, 
and fought, and conquered by their side. But they go not unob- 
served ; the tidings of their approach are travelling before them ; 
the faithful messengers have aroused the citizens from their slum- 
bers; alarm guns are answering to each other, and spreading the 
from village to village; the tocsin is heard, at this unnatural 
hour, from steeples thai never before rung with any other summons 
than that of the gospel of peace; the sacred tranquillity of the 
hour is startled with all the mingled sounds of preparation, — of 
gathering bands, and resolute though unorganized resistance. 

The Committee of Safety, as has been observed, had set, the 
preceding day. at Wesl Cambridge; and three of its respected 
members, Gerrj . Lee, and ( >me, had retired to sleep, in the public 

house, where the session of the committee was held. So difficult 

was it, notwithstanding all that had passed, to realize that a state 
of things could exist, between England and America, in which 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 77 

American citizens should be liable to be torn from their beds by an 
armed force at midnight, that the members of the Committee of 
Safety, though forewarned of the approach of the British troops, 
did not even think it necessary to retire from their lodgings. On 
the contrary, they rose from their beds and went to their windows 
to gaze on the unwonted sight, the midnight march of armies 
through the peaceful hamlets of New England. Half the column 
had already passed, when a flank guard was promptly detached to 
search the public house, no doubt in the design of arresting the 
members of the Committee of Safety, who might be there. It 
was only at this last critical moment, that Mr Gerry and his friends 
bethought themselves of flight, and without time even to clothe 
themselves, escaped naked into the fields. 

By this time Colonel Smith, who commanded the expedition, 
appears to have been alarmed at the indications of a general rising 
throughout the country. The light infantry companies were now 
detached and placed under the command of Major Pitcairne, for 
the purpose of hastening forward, to secure the bridges at Concord ; 
and thus cut off the communication between this place and the 
towns north and west of it. Before these companies could reach 
Lexington, the officers already mentioned, who had arrested 
Colonel Revere, joined their advancing countrymen, and reported 
that five hundred men were drawn up in Lexington, to resist the 
king's troops. On receiving this exaggerated account, the British 
light infantry was halted, to give time for the grenadiers to come 
up, that the whole together might move forward to the work of 
death. 

The company assembled on Lexington Green, which the British 
officers, in their report, had swelled to five hundred, consisted of 
sixty or seventy of the militia of the place. Information had been 
received about nightfall, both by private means and by communi- 
cations from the Committee of Safety, that a strong party of officers 
had been seen on the road, directing their course toward Lexington. 
In consequence of this intelligence, a body of about thirty of the 
militia, well armed, assembled early in the evening ; a guard of 
eight men under Colonel William Munroe, then a sergeant in the 
company, was stationed at the house of the Rev. Mr Clark ; and 
three men were sent off to give the alarm at Concord. These 



78 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

throe messengers were however stopped on their way, as has been 
mentioned, by the British officers, who had already passed onward. 
One of their number, Elijah Sanderson, has lately died at Salem 
at an advanced age. A little after midnight, as has been observed, 
Messrs Revere and Dawes arrived with the certain information, 
that a very large bod) of the royal troops was in motion. The 
alarm was now general!} given to the inhabitants of Lexington, 
messengers were scut down the road to ascertain the movements of 
the troops, and the militia company under Captain John Parker 
appeared on the green to the number of one hundred and thirty. 
The roll was duly called at this perilous midnight muster, and some 
answered to their names for the last time on earth. The company 
was now ordered to load with powder and ball, and awaited in 
anxious expectation the return of those who had been sent to 
reconnoitre the enemy. One of them, in consequence of some 
misinformation, returned and reported that there was no appearance 
of troops on the road from Boston. Under this harrassing uncer- 
tainty and contradiction, the militia were dismissed, to await the 
return of the other expresses, and with orders to be in readiness at 
the beat of the drum. One of these messengers was made pris- 
oner by the British, whose march was so cautious, that they 
remained undiscovered till within a mile and a half of Lexington 
meetinghouse, and time was scarce left for the last messenger to 
return with the tidings of their approach. 

The new alarm was now given; the bell rings, alarm guns are 
fired, the drum beats to arms. Some of the militia had gone home, 
when dismissed : but the greater part were in the neighboring 
houses, and instantly obeyed the summons. Sixty or seventy 
appeared on the green and were drawn up in double ranks. At 
this moment the British column of eight hundred gleaming bayonets 
appears, headed hv their mounted commanders, their banners 
flying and drums beating a charge. To engage them with a 
handful of militia of course was madness, — to fly at the sight of 
them, they disdained. The British troops rush furiously on : their 
commanders, with mingled threats and execrations, bid the Ameri- 
cans lay (low n their arms and disperse, and their ow n Hoop- to lire. 

\ 111 ent's delay, as of compunction, follows. The order with 

vehement imprecations is repeated, and they fire. No one falls. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 79 

and the band of self-devoted heroes, most of whom had never 
seen such a body of troops before, stand firm in the front of an 
army, outnumbering them ten to one. Another volley succeeds ; 
the killed and wounded drop, and it was not till they had returned 
the fire of the overwhelming force, that the militia were driven 
from the field. A scattered fire now succeeded on both sides while 
the Americans remained in sight ; and the British troops were 
then drawn up on the green to fire a volley and give a shout in 
honor of the victory.* 

While these incidents were taking place, and every moment 
then came charged with events, which were to give a character to 
centuries ; Hancock and Adams, though removed by their friends 
from the immediate vicinity of the force sent to apprehend them, 
were apprized, too faithfully, that the work of death was begun. 
The heavy and quick repeated vollies told them a tale, that needed 
no exposition, — which proclaimed that Great Britain had re- 
nounced that strong invisible tie which bound the descendants of 
England to the land of their fathers, and had appealed to the right 
of the strongest. The inevitable train of consequences burst in 
prophetic fulness upon their minds ; and the patriot Adams, forget- 
ting the scenes of tribulation through which America must pass to 
realize the prospect, and heedless that the ministers of vengeance, 
in overwhelming strength, were in close pursuit of his own life, 
uttered that memorable exclamation, than which nothing more 
sublime can be found in the records of Grecian or Roman heroism, 
— " O, what a glorious morning is this ! " 

Elated with its success, the British army took up its march 
toward Concord. The intelligence of the projected expedition 
had been communicated to this town by Dr Samuel Prescott, in the 
manner already described ; and from Concord had travelled onward 
in every direction. The interval was employed in removing a por- 
tion of the public stores to the neighboring towns, while the aged 
and infirm, the women and children, sought refuge in the surround- 
ing woods. About seven o'clock in the morning, the glittering 
arms of the British column were seen advancing on the Lincoln 
road. A body of militia, from one hundred and fifty to two hun- 

* See note C. 



80 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

dred men, who had taken post for observation on the heights above 
the entrance to the town, retire at the approach of the army of the 
enemy, first to the hill a little farther north, and then beyond the 
bridge. The British troops press forward into the town, and arc 
drawn up in front of the courthouse. Parties are then ordered out 
to the various spots where the public stores and arms were suppos- 
ed to be deposited. .Much had been removed to places of safety, 
and something was saved by the prompt and innocent artifices of 
individuals. The destruction of property and of anns was hasty 
and incomplete, and considered as the object of an enterprise of 
such fatal consequences, it stands in shocking contrast with the 
waste of blood by which it was effected. 

I am relating events, which though they can never be repeated 
more frequently than they deserve, are yet familiar to all who hear 
me. I need not, therefore, attempt, nor would it be practicable 
did I attempt it, to recall the numerous interesting occurrences of 
that ever memorable day. The reasonable limits of a public dis- 
course must confine us to a selection of the more prominent inci- 
dent-. 

It was the first care of the British commander to cut off the 
approach of the Americans from the neighboring towns, by destroy- 
ing or occupying the bridges. A parts was immediately sent to 
the south bridge and tore it up. A force of six companies, under 
Captains Parsons and Low rie, was sent to the north bridge. Three 
companies under Captain Lowrie were left to guard it. and three 
under Captain Parsons proceeded to Colonel Barrett's house, in 
search of provincial stores. While they were engaged on that 
errand, the militia of Concord, joined by their brave brethren from 
the neighboring towns, gathered on the hill opposite the north 
bridge, under the command of Colonel Robinson and Major But- 
trick. The British companies at the bridge were now apparently 
bewildered with the perils of their situation, and began to tear up 
the plank- of the bridge ; not remembering, that this would expose 
their own party, then al Colonel Barrett's, to certain and entire 
destruction. The Americans, on the other hand, resolved to keep 
open the con ii in mica lion with the town, and perceiving the attempt 
which was made to destroy the bridge, were immediately put in 
motion, with order- not to rive the first Cue. They drew near to 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 81 

the bridge, the Acton company in front, led on by the gallant 
Davis. Three alarm guns were fired into the water, by the Brit- 
ish, without arresting the march of our citizens. The signal for a 
general discharge is then made ; — a British soldier steps from the 
ranks, and fires at Major Buttrick. The ball passed between his 
arm and his side, and slightly wounded Mr Luther Blanchard, who 
stood near him. A volley instantly followed, and Captain Davis 
was shot through the heart, gallantly marching at the head of the 
Acton militia against the choice troops of the British line. A pri- 
vate of his company, Mr Hosmer of Acton, also fell at his side. 
A general action now ensued, which terminated in the retreat of 
the British party, after the loss of several killed and wounded, 
toward the centre of the town, followed by the brave band who 
had driven them from their post. The advance party of Brit- 
ish at Colonel Barrett's was thus left to its fate ; and nothing 
would have been more easy than to effect its entire destruction. 
But the idea of a declared war had yet scarcely forced itself, with 
all its consequences, into the minds of our countrymen ; and these 
advanced companies were allowed to return unmolested to the main 
band. 

It was now twelve hours since the first alarm had been given, 
the evening before, of the meditated expedition. The swift 
watches of that eventful night had scattered the tidings far and 
wide ; and widely as they spread, the people rose in their strength. 
The genius of America, on this the morning of her emancipation, 
had sounded her horn over the plains and upon the mountains ; 
and the indignant yeomanry of the land, armed with the weapons 
which had done service in their fathers' hands, poured to the spot 
where this new and strange tragedy was acting. The old New- 
England drums, that had beat at Louisburgh, at Quebec, at Mar- 
tinique, at the Havana, were now sounding on all the roads to 
Concord. There were officers in the British line, that knew the 
sound ; — they had heard it, in the deadly breach, beneath the 
black, deep-throated engines of the French and Spanish castles, 
and they knew what followed, where that sound went before. 
With the British it was a question no longer of protracted contest, 
nor even of halting long enough to rest their exhausted troops, 
after a weary night's march, and all the labor, confusion, and dis- 
10 



82 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

tress of the day's efforts. Their dead were hastily buried in the 
public square ; their wounded placed in the vehicles which the 
town afforded ; and a flight commenced, to which the annals of 
warfare will hardly afford a parallel. On all the neighboring hills 
were multitudes from the surrounding country, of the unarmed and 
infirm, of women and of children, who had fled from the terrors and 
the perils of the plunder and conflagration of their homes; or were 
collected, with tearful curiosity, to mark the progress of this storm 
of war. 'The panic fears of a calamitous flight, on the part of the 
British, transformed this inoffensive, timid throng into a threatening 
array of aimed men : and there was too much reason for the mis- 
conception. Everj height of ground, within reach of the line of 
march, was covered with the indignant avengers of their slaughter- 
ed brethren. The British light companies were sent out to greal 
distances as flanking parties: hut who was to flank the Hankers? 
Every patch of trees, every rock, every stream of water, every 
building, every stone wall, was lined, (1 use the words of a British 
officer in the battle.) with an uninterinitled lire. Every CIOSS load 
opened a new avenue to the assailants. Through one of these the 
gallant Brooks led up the minute men of Reading. At another 
defile, the} were encountered 1>\ the Lexington militia, under Cap- 
tain Parker, who. undismayed at the loss of more than a tenth of 
their number in killed and wounded in the morning, had return* d 
to the conflict. At fust the contest w as kept up by the British, 
with all the skill and valor of veteran troops. To a militaiy eye it 
was not an unequal content. The commander was not, or oughl 
not to have been taken b\ surprise. Eight hundred picked men. 
grenadiers and li-Jit infantry, from the English army, w ere no doubt 
considered b\ General Gage a very ample detachment to march 
eighteen or twenty miles through an open country ; and a very fair 
match for all the resistance which could be made by unprepared 
husbandmen, without concert, discipline, or leaders. With alioiit 

t< a nines their number, the Grecian commander had forced a march 
out of the wrecks of a field of battle and defeat, through the bar- 
barous nations of Asia, for thirteen long months, from the plain- of 
Babylon to the Black Sea. through forests, defiles, and deserts, 

which the fool of civilized man had never trod. It was the Amer- 
ican cause, — it- hol\ foundation in truth and right, its strength and 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 83 

life in the hearts of the people, that converted what would natural- 
ly have been the undisturbed march of a strong, well provided 
army, into a rabble rout of terror and death. It was this, which 
sowed the fields of our pacific villages with dragon's teeth ; which 
nerved the arm of age ; called the ministers and servants of the 
church into the hot fire ; and even filled with strange passion and 
manly strength the heart and the arm of the stripling. A British 
historian, to paint the terrific aspect of things that presented itself 
to his countrymen, declares that the rebels swarmed upon the hills, 
as if they dropped from the clouds. Before the flying troops had 
reached Lexington, their rout was entire. Some of the officers had 
been made prisoners, some had been killed, and several wounded, 
and among them the commander in chief, Colonel Smith. The 
ordinary means of preserving discipline failed ; the wounded, in 
chaises and wagons, pressed to the front and obstructed the road ; 
wherever the flanking parties, from the nature of the ground, were 
forced to come in, the line of march was crowded and broken ; the 
ammunition began to fail ; and at length the entire body was on a 
full run. ' We attempted,' says a British officer already quoted, 
' to stop the men and form them two deep, but to no purpose ; the 
confusion rather increased than lessened.' An English historian 
says, the British soldiers were driven before the Americans like 
sheep ; till, by a last desperate effort, the officers succeeded in 
forcing their way to the front, ' when they presented their swords 
and bayonets against the breasts of their own men, and told them, 
if they advanced they should die.' Upon this they began to form, 
under what the same British officer pronounces ' a very heavy fire,' 
which must soon have led to the destruction or capture of the 
whole corps. At this critical moment a reinforcement arrived. 
Colonel Smith had sent back a messenger from Lexington to ap- 
prize General Gage of the check he had there received, and of the 
alarm which was running through the country. Three regiments 
of infantry and two divisions of marines with two fieldpieces, under 
the command of Brigadier General Lord Percy, were accordingly 
detached. They marched out of Boston, through Roxbury and 
Cambridge,* and came up with the flying party, in the hour of 

* See note D. 



84 i:\ IKKTT'S ((RATIONS. 

their extreme peril. While their fieldpieces kept the Americans at 
bay, the reinibrcemenl drew up in a hollow square, into which, 
gays the British historian, they received the exhausted fugitives, 
•who lay down on the ground, with their tongues hanging (Void 

their mouths, like dogs alter a chase.' 

A hall hour was given to rest; the march was then resumed; 
and under cover of the heldpieces, everj bouse in Lexington, and 
on the road downwards, was plundered and set on fire. Though 
the flames in most cases were speedily extinguished, several houses 
were destroyed. Notwithstanding 'he attention of a -oat part of the 
Americans was thus drawn oil', and although the British force was 
now more than doubled, their retreat --till wore the aspect of a 
flight. The Vmericans filled the heights that overhung the road, 
ami at every defile the struggle was sharp and bloody. At West 
Cambridge, the gallant Warren, never distant when danger was to 
be braved, appeared in the field, and a musket hall soon cut off a 
lock of hair from his temple. General Heath was with him, nor 
does there appear till this moment, to have been any effective 
command among the American forces. 

Below Wesl Cambridge, the militia from Dorchester, Roxbury, 
and Brookline came up. The British fieldpieces began to lose 
their terror. A sharp skirmish followed, and many fell on both 
side<. Indignation and outraged humanity struggled on the one 

hand, veteran discipline and desperation on the other : and the con- 
tent, in more than one instance, was man to man. and haumet to 

bayonet. 

The British Officers had keen compelled to descend from their 
I o escape the certain destruction, which attended their expos- 
ed situation. The wounded, to the number of two hundred, now 

presented the mosl distressing and constant!) increasing obstruction 

to the progress of the march. Near one hundred brave men had 
fallen in this disastrous flight ; a considerable number had keen 

made prisoners J a round or two of ammunition Onl) remained : 

and it was nol till late in the evening, nearly twenty-four hours 

from the lime when the firsl detachment was put in motion, that 
the exhausted remnanl reached the heights of Charlestown. The 
boats of the vessels of war were immediatel) employed to trans- 
port the wounded: the remaining British to. op- In Boston came 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 85 

over to Charlestown to protect their weary countrymen during the 
niulit ; and before the close of the next day the royal army was 
formally besieged in Boston. 

Such, fellow citizens, imperfectly sketched in their outline, were 
the events of the day we celebrate ; a day as important as any 
recorded in the history of man. It is a proud anniversary for our 
neighborhood. We have cause for honest complacency, that when 
the distant citizen of our own republic, when the stranger from 
foreign lands, inquires for the spots where the noble blood of the 
Revolution began to flow, where the first battle of that great and 
glorious contest was fought, he is guided through the villages of 
Middlesex, to the plains of Lexington and Concord. It is a com- 
memoration of our soil, to which ages, as they pass, will add dignity 
and interest ; till the names of Lexington and Concord, in the an- 
nals of freedom, will stand by the side of the most honorable names 
in Roman or Grecian story. 

It was one of those great days, one of those elemental occasions 
in the world's affairs, when the people rise and act for themselves. 
Some organization and preparation had been made ; but, from the 
nature of the case, with scarce any effect on the events of that day. 
It may be doubted, whether there was an efficient order given the 
whole day to any body of men, as large as a regiment. It was the 
people, in their first capacity, as citizens and as freemen, starting 
from their beds at midnight, from their firesides, and from their fields, 
to take their own cause into their own hands. Such a spectacle is 
the height of the moral sublime ; when the want of every thing is 
fully made up by the spirit of the cause ; and the soul within stands 
in place of discipline, organization, resources. In the prodigious 
efforts of a veteran army, beneath the dazzling splendor of their 
their array, there is something revolting to the reflective mind. 
The ranks are filled with the desperate, the mercenary, the de- 
praved ; an iron slavery, by the name of subordination, merges the 
free will of one hundred thousand men, in the unqualified despotism 
of one ; the humanity, mercy, and remorse, which scarce ever de- 
sert the individual bosom, are sounds without a meaning to that 
fearful, ravenous, irrational monster of prey, a mercenary army. It 
is hard to say, who are most to be commiserated, the wretched 
people, on whom it is let loose, or the still more wretched people, 



-() EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

whose substance has been sucked out, to nourish it into strength 
and fury. Bui in the efforts of the people, — of the people strug- 
gling for their rights, moving not in organized, disciplined masses, 
but in their spontaneous action, man for man, and heart for heart, 
— there is something glorious. The} can then move forward with- 
out orders, act together without combination, and brave the flaming 
lines of battle, \\ ithout entrenchments to cover, or walls to shield them. 
No dissolute camp has worn off from the feelings of the youthful sol- 
dier the freshness of that borne, where his mother and his sisters sit 
waiting, with tearful eyes and aching hearts, to hear good news 
from the wars; no long service in the ranks of a conqueror has 
turned the veteran's heart into marble; their valor springs not from 
recklessness, from habit, from indifference to the preservation of a 
life, I. nit by no pledges to the life of others. But in the strength 
and spirit of the cause alone they act, they contend, they bleed. 
[n this, the} conquer. The people always conquer. They always 
must conquer. Annies may be defeated; kings may be overthrown, 
and new dynasties imposed by foreign arms on an ignorant and 
slavish race, that care not in what language the covenant of their 
subjection runs, nor in whose name the deed of their barter and 
sale is made out. Hut the people never invade ; and when they 
rise againsl the invader, are never subdued. If they are driven from 
the plain-, tin \ fly to the mountains. Steep rocks and everlasting 
hills are their castles ; the tangled, pathless thicket their palisado, 
and nature. — God, is their ally. J\ow he overwhelms the hosts of 
their enemies beneath his drifting mountains of sand ; now he buries 
them beneath a falling atmosphere of polar snows; he lets loose 
his tempests on [heir fleets : he puts a toll\ into their counsels, a 
madness into the hearts of their leaders ; and never gave and nev- 
er will give a full and final triumph over a virtuous, gallant people, 
resolved to be free. 

There is another reflection, which deserves to lie made, while 
we dwell <Miilie events of the nineteenth of April. It was the 
work df the country. The cities of America, particularly the 
metropolis of our own state, bore their pari nobly in tne revolution- 
ar) contest, h is not unjust to -aw thai much of the spirit which 
animated America, particularly before die great appeal to arm-, 
-rew out of the comparison of opinions and concert of feeling, 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 87 

which might not have existed, without the convenience of assem- 
bling which our large towns afford. But if we must look to the 
city for a part of the impulse, we must look to the country at large, 
for the heart to be moved, — for the strength and vigor to persevere 
in the motion. It was the great happiness of America, that her 
cities were no larger, no more numerous, no nearer to each other ; 
that the strength, the intelligence, the spirit of the people were 
diffused over plains, and encamped on the hills. 

In most of the old and powerful states of Europe, the nation is 
identified with the capital, and the capital with the court. France 
must fall with the city of Paris, and the city of Paris with a few 
courtiers, cabinet ministers, and princes. No doubt the English 
ministry thought that by holding Boston, they held New-England ; 
that the country was conquered in advance, by the military occu- 
pation of the great towns. They did not know, that every town 
and village in America had discussed the great questions at issue for 
itself; and in its town-meetings, and committees of correspond- 
ence and safety, had come to the resolution, that America must 
not be taxed by England. The English government did not un- 
derstand, — we hardly understood, ourselves, till we saw it in action, 
— the operation of a state of society, where every man is or may 
be a freeholder, a voter for every elective office, a candidate for 
every one ; where the means of a good education are universally 
accessible ; where the artificial distinctions of society are known 
but in a slight degree ; where glaring contrasts of condition are 
rarely met with ; where few are raised by the extreme of wealth 
above their fellow men, and fewer sunk by the extreme of poverty 
beneath it. The English ministry had not reasoned upon the nat- 
ural growth of such a soil ; that it could not permanently bear 
either a colonial, or a monarchical government ; that the only true 
and native growth of such a soil was a perfect independence and 
an intelligent republicanism. Independence, because such a coun- 
try must disdain to go over the water to find another to protect it ; 
Republicanism, because the people of such a country must disdain 
to look up for protection to any one class among themselves. The 
entire action of these principles was unfolded to the world on the 
nineteenth of April, 1775. Without waiting to take an impulse 



EVKRETT'S ORATIONS. 

from any thing but their own breasts, and in defiance of the whole 
exerted powers of die British empire, the yeomanry of the country 

rose as a man. and set their lives on this dear stake of liberty. 

When we look back on the condition in which America stood 
on the L9tb of April, L775; and compare it with that in which it 
stands this daw we can find do Language of gratitude with which to 
do justice to those, who took the lead in the revolutionary cause. 
The best gratitude, the best thanks will be an imitation of their 
example. It would be an exceedingly narrow view of the part 
assigned to this country on the stage of the nations, to consider the 
erection of an independent and. representative government as the 
only political object at which the Revolution aimed, and the only 
political improvement which our duty requires. These are two 
all-important steps, indeed, in the work of meliorating the state of 
society. The first gives the people of America the sovereign power 
of earning its will into execution; the second furnishes an equita- 
ble and convenient mode of ascertaining what the will of the people 
is. But shall we stop here? Shall we make no use of these two 
engines, by whose combined action every individual mind enjoys a 
share in the sovereign power of this great nation? Most of the 
civil and social institutions which still exist in the country, were 
brought by our fathers from the old world, and are strongly im- 
pressed with the character of the state of society which there pre- 
vails. Under the influence of necessity, these institutions have been 
partially reformed, and rendered, to a certain degree, harmonious 
with the nature of a popular government. IJnt much remains to 
be done, to make the work of revolution complete. Main portions 
of our social and political system yet need. — so to say. — to he rev- 
olutionized ; that is. to be revised, and made entireh conformable 
to the interests and wishes of the greal mass. It is time, in short, 
to a<-t upon the maxim in which the wisdom of all ages is wrapped 
np. — THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE IS THE VOICE OF (xOD. Apart 

from inspired revelation, their i- no way. in which the will of 
heaven is made known, but by the sound, collective sense oi the 
majorit) of men. h is given to no privileged family, to no heredi- 
tary ruler; it is given to no commanding genius; it is given to no 
learned sage; it is given to no circle of men to pronounce this 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 89 

sacred voice. It must be uttered by the people, in their own capa- 
city : and whensoever it is uttered, I say not it ought to be, but 
that it will be obeyed. 

But it is time to relieve your patience. I need not labor to im- 
press you with a sense of the duty, which devolves on those, whose 
sires achieved the ever memorable exploits of this day. The les- 
son, I know, has not been lost upon you. Nowhere have the 
spirit and principles of the Revolution preserved themselves in 
greater purity ; nowhere have the institutions, to which the Rev- 
olution led, been more firmly cherished. The toils and sufferings 
of that day were shared by a glorious band of patriots, whose name 
was your boast while living ; whose memory you will never cease 
to cherish. The day we commemorate called the noble farmer of 
Middlesex, — the heroic Prescott, — to the field, and impelled him 
not to accept, but to solicit the post of honor and danger, on the 
17th of June : — noble, I call him, for when did coronet or diadem 
ever confer distinction, like the glory which rests on that man's 
name ? In the perils of this day, the venerable Gerry bore his 
part. This was the day, which called the lamented Brooks and 
Eustis to their country's service ; which enlisted them, blooming in 
the freshness and beauty of youth, in that sacred cause, to which 
the strength of their manhood and the grey hairs of their age were 
devoted. The soil which holds their honored dust shall never be 
unworthy of them. 

What pride did you not justly feel in that soil, when you lately 
welcomed the nation's guest, — the venerable champion of America, 
— to the spot, where that first note of struggling freedom was ut- 
tered, which sounded across the Atlantic, and drew him from all 
the delights of life, to enlist in our cause ! Here, you could tell 
him, our fathers fought and fell, before they knew whether another 
arm would be raised to second them. No Washington had appear- 
ed to lead, no Lafayette had hastened to assist, no charter of inde- 
pendence had yet breathed the breath of life into the cause, w hen 
the nineteenth of April called our fathers to the field. 

What remains, then, but to guard the precious birthright of our 

liberties ; to draw from the soil which we inhabit, a consistency in 

the principles so nobly vindicated, so sacredly sealed thereon ? It 

shall never be said, while distant regions, wheresoever the temples 

11 



90 i \ BRETT'S OB kTlONS, 

of freedom are reared, are sending back their hearts to the plains of 
Lexington and Concord, for their brightesl and purest examples of 
patriotic daring thai we, whose lives are cast on these favored spots, 
can become indifferent to the exhortation, which breathes tons 
from ever) sod of the valley. Those principles, which others ma) 
adopt on the colder ground of their reason and their truth, we are 
bound to support b) the dearest and deepest feelings. N\ heresoi 
ever the torch of liberty shall expire, wheresoever the manl) -im- 
plicit) of our land shall perish beneath the poison of luxury, where- 
soever the cause which called our fathers this daj to arms, and the 
principles which sustained their hearts in that stern encounter, may 
be deserted or betrayed, — it shall not, fellow citizens, it shall not 

he, on the soil which was moistened with their hlood. The names 

of Marathon and Thermopylae, after aues of subjection, still nerve 
the arm of the Grecian patriot ; and should die loot of a tyrant, or 
of a slave, approach these venerated spots, the noble hearts that 

hied at Lexington and ('oncord, -all dust a-, they are," would heat 

beneath the sod with indignation. 

Honor, this day, to the venerable survivors of thai momentous 
day, which tiled men's souls. Great is the happiness the) are 
permitted to enjoy, in uniting, within the compass of their own 
experience, the doubtful struggles and the full blown prosperity of 
our happ) land. Ma\ thej share the welfare they witness around 
them; it is the work of their hands, the fruit of their toils, the 
price of their lives (reel) hazarded, that their children mighl live 
free. Bravel) the) dared: patiently, — aye, more than patiently, 
— heroically, piously, the) suffered; largely, richly, ma) the) en- 
joy. Mosl of their companions are alread) departed; let us renew 
our tribute ofrespeel this da) to their honored memory. Numbers 
:it will recollect the affecting solemnities, with which you 
accompanied to his last home, the brave, the lamented Buttrick. 
\\ nil trailing banners, ami mournful music, and all the touching 
ensigns of militar) sorrow, you followed the bier of the fallen sol- 
dier, over the ground where he led the determined hand of patriots 
on the morn ol the Ke\ olution. 

Bui chief!) to those w ho fell ; to those w ho stood in the breach, 
at the breaking ol' that day of hlood a1 Lexington; to those who 

joined in battle, and died honorably, facing the Un- a! Concord: to 



EVERETT'S OUATfONS. 91 

those who fell in the gallant pursuit of the flying enemy ; — let us 
this day pay a tribute of grateful admiration. The old and the 
young ; the gray-haired veteran, the stripling in the flower of youth; 
husbands, fathers, brethren, sons ; — they stood side by side, and 
fell together, like the beauty of Israel, on their high places. 

We have founded this day a monument to their memory. When 
the hands thai rear ii are motionless, when the feeble voice is silent, 
which speaks our father's praise, the engraven stone shall bear 
witness to other ages, of our gratitude and their worth. And ages 
still farther on, when the monument itself, like those who build it, 
-hall have crumbled to dust, the happy aspect of the land which 
our fathers redeemed, the liberty they achieved, the institutions 
they founded, shall remain, one common, eternal monument to their 
memory. 



NOTKS. 



A ult .7, pagi 7 !. 

Thai' the lanterns were observed in Charlestown, we are in- 
forraed by Colonel Revere, in the interesting communication in 
the Collections of the Historical Society, from which tliis part of 
the narrative is chief!} taken. A tradition by private channels has 
descended, thai these lanterns in the North Church were quickly 
noticed !>v the officers of the British army, on duty on the i vening 
of the 18th. To prevent the alarm being communicated l»\ these 
signals into the countrj . the British officers, who had noticed them, 
i ied to the church to extinguish them. Their steps were 

heard on the stairs in the tower of the church, b) the sexton, who 
had lighted the lanterns. To escape discovery, he himself extin- 
guished the lanterns, and passing by the officers on the stairs, 
concealed himself in the vaults of the church. I [e was, a day or 
two alter, arrested, while discharging the duties of his office at a 
funeral, tried, and condemned to death; but respited on a threat 
of pi taliation from Gen. Washington , and linalh exchanged. 'I 'his 
anecdote was related i > me. with many circumstances of particu- 
larity, by one who had often beard ii from the sexton himself. 



.Yc/. B, pagt ' I. 

The manner in which Colonel Revere was received at Lexing- 
ton, which i- not related in his own httcr, will appear from the 

following extract fr the deposition of Colonel William Munroe, 

which, with Be vera! other similar interesting documents, forms a 

part of the Appendix to the pamphlet alluded to in the next note. 

(t Vhout midnight, Colonel Paul Revere rode up and requested 



Everett's orations. 93 

admittance. I told him the family had just retired, and requested 
they might not be disturbed by any noise about the house. 
'Noise!' said he, 'you'll have noise enough before long. The 
regulars are coming out.' We then permitted him to pass." p. 33. 



Note C, page 79. 

It will be perceived, that, in drawing up the account of the 
transactions at Lexington, reference has been had to the testimony 
contained in the pamphlet lately published, entitled, ' History of 
the Battle at Lexington, on the morning of the 19th of April, 1775. 
By Elias Phinney.' While in this pamphlet several interesting 
facts are added, on the strength of the depositions of surviving 
actors in the scene, to the accounts previously existing, there is 
nothing, perhaps, in them, which may not be reconciled with those 
previously existing accounts, if due allowance be made for the sole 
object for which the latter were originally published, — (to show that 
the British were the aggressors,) — for the hurry and confusion of 
the moment; and for the different aspect of the scene as witnessed 
by different persons, from different points of view. It has, how- 
ever, been my aim not to pronounce on questions in controversy; 
but to state the impression left on my own mind, after an attentive 
examination of all the evidence. 



Note D, page 83. 

An interesting anecdote relative to this march of Lord Percy 
has been communicated to me by a veteran of the Revolution, who 
bore his part in the events of the day. Intelligence having been 
promptly received of Lord Percy's being detached, the Selectmen 
of Cambridge, by order of the Committee of Safety, caused the 
planks of the Old Bridge to be taken up. Had this been effectually 
done, it would have arrested the progress of Lord Percy. But the 
planks, though all taken up, instead of being thrown into the river 
or removed to a distance, were piled up on the causeway, at the 
Cambridge end of the bridge. But little time was therefore lost 
by Lord Percy, in sending over men upon the string-pieces of the 
bridge, who replaced the planks, so as to admit the passage of the 
troops. This was, however, so hastily and insecurely done, that 



91 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

win ii a convoy of pro\ ision wagons, with ;i sergeant's guard. \\ liirli 
had followed in the rear of the reinforcement, reached the bridge, 
the planks wen' ('mind to be too loos< lv laid to admit a safe pas- 
and a good deal '>t' time was consumed in adjusting them. 
The convoy ;it length passed; bul after such a delay, thai Lord 
Percy's army was oul of sight. The officer who commanded the 
convoy was unacquainted with the roads, and was misdirected by 
the inhabitants at Cambridge; having at last, after much losl time, 
been pul into the righl road, the body of troops under Lord Percj 
ar advanced, as to afford the convo) no protection. A 
plan was accordingly laid and executed by the citizens of West 
Cambridge (then Menotomy) to arrest this convoy. The alarum- 
b -I. of exempts, under Captain Frost, b) whom this exploit 
\. ed, acted under the direction of a negro, who had served 

in the French war: and who, on this occasion, displayed the 
Utmosl skill and spirit. The history of Gordmi, and the other 
accounts which follow him, attribute the capture of the convoj to 
the Rev. Dr Payson of Chelsea. Those who have farther inform- 
ation alone can judge between the two accounts. The Rev. .Mr 
ThaxterofEdgartowiJlu] a l< tter lately ( 1825 published in the United 
Stad s Literary Gazette, has ascribed the same exploit to the Rev. 
Edward Brooks of Medford. Mr Brooks early hastened to the 
field as a volunteer that day; and is said to have preserved the 
life of Lieut. Gould of the 18th regiment, who was made prisoner 
at Concord Bridge; but there is, I believe, no ground for ascribing 
to him the conduct of the affair in question. 



ORATION 

DELIVERED AT CAMBRIDGE, ON THE FOURTH OF JULY, 1826. 



Fellow Citizens, 

It belongs to us, with strong propriety, to celebrate this day. 
The town of Cambridge, and the county of Middlesex, are filled 
with the vestiges of the Revolution ; whithersoever we turn our 
eyes, we behold some memento of its glorious scenes. Within 
the walls, in which we are now assembled, was convened the first 
provincial Congress, after its adjournment at 'Concord. The rural 
magazine at Medford, reminds us of one of the earliest acts of 
British aggression. The march of both divisions of the Royal 
army, on the memorable nineteenth of April, was through the 
limits of Cambridge ; in the neighboring towns of Lexington and 
Concord, the first blood of the Revolution was shed ; in West 
Cambridge, the Royal convoy of provisions was, the same day, 
gallantly surprised by the aged citizens, who staid to protect their 
homes, while their sons pursued the foe. Here the first American 
army was formed ; from this place, on the seventeenth of June, 
was detached the Spartan band, that immortalized the heights of 
Charlestown ; consecrated that day, with blood and fire, to the 
cause of American liberty. Beneath the venerable elm, which 
still shades the southwestern corner of the common, General 
Washington first unsheathed his sword at the head of an American 
army ; and to that seat* he was wont every Sunday to repair, to 
join in the supplications which were made for the welfare of his 
country. 

* The first wall pew, on the right hand of the pulpit. 



96 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

How changed is now the scene! The foe is gone ! The din 
and the desolation of war are passed; Science lias long since 
resumed her station iii the shade- of our venerable University, do 
longer glittering with arms. The anxious war-council is no longer 
in session, to offer a reward for the discovery of the best mode of 
making saltpetre, — an unpromising stage of hostilities when an 
arm) of twenty thousand men is in the field in front of the foe. 
The tall grass now waves in the trampled sallyports of some of die 
rural redoubts, that form a pari of the simple lin< - of circumvalla- 
tion, within which a half-armed American militia held the flower 
of the British army blockaded ; the plough has done, what the 
English batt< ries could not do, — and levelled others of them with 
the earth; and the Men, the great and good men. — their warfare is 
over, and the) have gone quietly down to the dusl they redeemed 
from oppression ! 

At the (dose of a half century since the declaration of our 
Independence, we are assembled to commemorate thai great and 
happy event. We come together, nol because it needs, but be- 
cause it deserves these acts of celebration. We do not meet each 
other, and exchange our felicitations, because we should otherwise 
fall into forg< tfulness of this auspicious era : hut because we owe 
it to our fathers and to our children, to mark it- return w it 1 1 graceful 
festivities. The major part of thi bl) is composed of those, 

who had not vet engaged in the active scenes of life, when the 
Revolution commenced. We come not to applaud our own work, 
but to pay a filial tribute to the deeds of our fathers. It was for 
their children, that the heroes and sages of the Revolution labored 
and hied. They were too wise not to know, that it was not per- 
sonally their own cause, in which they were embarked; the 
that they wen.' engaging in an enterprise, which an entire genera- 
tion must he too short to bring to its mature and perfect issue. 
The mosl they could promise themselves was, that, havin 
forth the seed of libert) ; having shielded its tender germ from the 

stern blasts that heat upon it : having watered it with the teal's ol 

waitii .nd the blood of brave hearts ; their children might 

gather the fruit of its branches, while those who planted it should 
moulder in peace beneath its 

Nor wa9 it only in this, that we discern their disinterestedness, 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 97 

and their heroic forgetfulness of self. Not only was the independ- 
ence, for which they struggled, a great and arduous adventure, of 
which they were to encounter the risk, and others to enjoy the 
benefits ; but the oppressions, which roused them, had assumed, in 
their day, no worse form than that of a pernicious principle. No 
intolerable acts of oppression had ground them to the dust. They 
were not slaves, rising in desperation from beneath the agonies of 
the lash ; but free men, snuffing from afar ' the tainted gale of 
tyranny.' The worst encroachments on which the British minis- 
try had ventured, might have been borne, consistently with the 
practical enjoyment of many of the advantages, resulting from 
good government. On the score of calculation alone, that genera- 
tion had much better have paid the duties on glass, painters' 
colors, stamped paper, and tea, than have plunged into the expen- 
ses of the Revolutionary war. But they thought not of shuffling 
off upon posterity the burden of resistance. They well under- 
stood the part, which Providence had assigned to them. They 
perceived that they were called to discharge a high and perilous 
office to the cause of Freedom ; that their hands were elected to 
strike the blow, for which near two centuries of preparation — never 
remitted, though often unconscious — had been making, on one side 
or the other of the Atlantic. They felt that the colonies had now 
reached that stage in their growth, when the difficult problem of 
colonial government must be solved. Difficult, I call it, for such 
it is to the statesman, whose mind is not sufficiently enlarged for 
the idea, that a wise colonial government must naturally and right- 
fully end in independence ; that even a mild and prudent sway, on 
the part of the mother country, furnishes no reason for not severing 
the bands of the colonial subjection ; and that when the rising 
state has passed the period of adolescence, the only alternate which 
remains, is that of a peaceable or violent separation. 

The British ministry, at that time weaker than it had ever been 
since the infatuated reign of James II, had no knowledge of polit- 
ical science, but that which they derived from the text of official 
records. They drew their maxims, as it was happily said of one 
of them, that he did his measures, from the file. They heard that 
a distant province had resisted the execution of an act of parlia- 
ment. Indeed, and what is the specific, in cases of resistance ? — 
12 



98 KVF.RETT'S ORATIONS. 

;i military force : — and two more regiments are ordered to Boston. 
\ i! they hear, that the General Court of" Massachusetts Bay has 
adopted measures, subversive of the allegiance due to the crown. A 
case of a refractory corporation : — what is to be doner First try 
a mandamus ; and it' that fails, seize the franchises into his majes- 
ty's hands. They never asked the great question, whether 
Providence has assigned no laws to regulate, the changes in the 
condition of that mosl astonishing of human things, a nation of 
kindred men. They did not inquire, 1 will not say whether it wen 1 
rightful and expedient, hut whether it were practicable, to give law 
across the Atlantic, to a people who possessed within themselves 
every imaginable element of self-government; — a people rocked 
in the cradle of liberty, brought up to hardship, inheriting little but 
their rights on earth, and their hopes in heaven. 

But though the rulers of Britain appear not to have caught a 
glimpse of the great principles involved in these questions, our 
fathers had asked and answered them. They perceived, with the 
rapidity of intuition, that the hour of separation had come ; be- 
cause a principle was assumed by the British government, which 
put an instantaneous check to the further grow th of liberty. Either 
the race of civilized man happily planted on our shores, at firsl 
slowly and painfully reared, hut at length auspiciouslj multiplying 
in America, is destined never to constitute a free and independent 
state : or these measures must he resisted, which go to hind it. in a 
mild hut abject colonial vassalage. Cither the hope must he for- 
ever abandoned, that had been brightening and kindling toward 

assurance, like the glowing <l x j rs of the morning, — the hope that a 
new centre of civilization was to he planted on the new continent. 

at which the social and political institutions of the world may he 

brought to the standard of reason and truth, after thousands of 

years of degeneracy, — either this hope musl he abandoned, and 
forever, or the battle was now to he fought, first in the political 

assemblies, and then, if need he. in the field. 

It can scarcely he said, that the battle was fought, in the halls 
of legislation. \ spectacle indeed seemed to he promised to tin' 
en iliz id world, of breathless interest, and uncalculated const quence. 
■ 5Tou are placed, 9 -aid the provincial Congress of Massachusetts, 
in their address to the inhabitants, of December 4th, 1774, promul- 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 99 

gated at the close of a session held in the very house, where we 
are now convened, ' You are placed by Providence in a post of 
honor, because it is a post of danger ; and while struggling for the 
noblest objects, the liberties of our country, the happiness of pos- 
terity, and the rights of human nature, the eyes, not only of North 
America and the whole British empire, but of all Europe, are upon 
you.' # A mighty question of political right was at issue, between 
the two hemispheres. Europe and America, in the face of man- 
kind, are going to plead the great cause, on which the fate of 
popular government forever is suspended. One circumstance, and 
one alone exists, to diminish the interest of the contention — the 
perilous inequality of the parties, — an inequality far exceeding 
that, which gives animation to a contest ; and so great as to destroy 
the hope of an ably waged encounter. On the one side were 
arrayed the two houses of the British parliament, the modern 
school of political eloquence, the arena where great minds had for 
a century and a half strenuously wrestled themselves into strength 
and power, and in better days the common and upright chancery 
of an empire, on which the sun never set. Upon the other side 
rose up the colonial assemblies of Massachusetts and Virginia, and 
the continental congress of Philadelphia, composed of men trained 
within a small provincial circuit ; — unaccustomed to the inspiration, 
which the consciousness of a station before the world imparts ; who 
brought no power into the contest, but that which they drew from 
their cause and their bosoms. It is by champions like these, that 
the great principles of representative government, of chartered 
rights, and constitutional liberty, are to be discussed; and surely 
never, in the annals of national controversy, was exhibited a 
triumph so complete of the seemingly weaker party, a rout so 
disastrous of the stronger. 

Often as it has been repeated, it will bear another repetition ; it 
never ought to be omitted in the history of constitutional liberty ; 
it ought especially to be repeated this day ; — the various addresses, 
petitions, and appeals, the correspondence, the resolutions, the 
legislative and popular debates, from 1764, to the declaration of 
independence, present a maturity of political wisdom, a strength of 

* Massachusetts State Papers, p. 416. 



100 I \ (RETT'S ORATIONS. 

argument, a gravity of style, a manly eloquence, and a moral cour- 
age, of which unquestionably the modern world affords no other 
example. This meed of praise, substantially accorded at the time 
by lord Chatham, in the British parliament, may well be repeated 
by us. For most of the venerated men to whom it is paid, it is 
but a pious tribute to departed worth. The Lees and the Henrys, 
Otis, Quincy, Warren, and Samuel Adams, the men who spoke 
those words of thrilling power, which raised and directed the storm 
of resistance, and rang like the voice of fate across the Atlantic, 
are beyond the reach of our praise. To most of them it was 
granted to witness some of the fruits of their labors ; such fruits as 
revolutions do not often bear. Others departed at an untimely 
hour, or nobly fell in the onset ; too soon for their country, too soon 
for liberty, too soon for every thing but their own undying fame. 
But all are not gone ; some still survive among us; the favored, 
enviable men, to hail the jubilee of the independence they declared. 
Go back, fellow citizens, to that day. when Jefferson and Adams 
composed the sub-committee, who reported the Declaration of 
Independence. Think of the mingled sensations of that proud 
but anxious day, compared to the joy of this. What reward, what 
crown, what treasure, could the world and all its kingdoms afford, 
compared with the honor and happiness of having been united in 
that commission, and living to see its most wavering hopes turned 
into glorious reality. V enerable men ! you have outlived the dark 
days, which followed your nunc than heroic deed; you have out- 
lived your own strenuous contention, who should stand first among 
the people whose libertj you had vindicated. You have lived to 
bear to each other the respect, which the nation bears to you both ; 
and each has been so happy as to exchange the honorable name 
of the leader of a parly, for that more honorable one, the Father 
of his Country. While this our tribute of respect, on the jubilee 
of our independence, is paid to the grey hairs of the venerable sur- 
vivor in our neighborhood : let il not less heartily he sped to him, 
Whose hand traced the lines of that sacred charter, which, to the 
end of time, has made this day illustrious. \nd is an emptj pro- 
fession of respect all that we owe to the man, who can show the 
original draught of the Declaration of the Independence of the 
United Status of America, in his own handwriting? Ought not a 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 101 

title-deed like this to become the acquisition of the nation ? Ought 
it not to be laid up in the archives of the people ? Ought not the 
price, at which it is bought, to be a provision for the ease and com- 
fort of the old age of him who drew it ? Ought not he, who at the 
age of thirty declared the independence of his country, at the age 
of eighty, to be secured by his country in the enjoyment of his 
own ? 

Nor would we, on the return of this eventful day,* forget the 
men, who, when the conflict of counsel was over, stood forward in 
that of arms. Yet let me not by faintly endeavoring to sketch, do 
deep injustice to the story of their exploits. The efforts of a life 
would scarce suffice to paint out this picture, in all its astonishing 
incidents, in all its mingled colors of sublimity and woe, of agony 
and triumph. But the age of commemoration is at hand. The 
voice of our fathers' blood begins to cry to us, from beneath the 
soil which it moistened. Time is bringing forward, in their proper 
relief, the men and the deeds of that high-souled day. The gene- 
ration of contemporary worthies is gone ; the crowd of the 
unsignalized great and good disappears ; and the leaders in war as 
well as counsel, are seen, in Fancy's eye, to take their stations on 
the mount of Remembrance. They come from the embattled 
cliffs of Abraham ; they start from the heaving sods of Bunker's 
Hill ; they gather from the blazing lines of Saratoga and York- 
town, from the blood-dyed waters of the Brandy wine, from the 
dreary snows of Valley Forge, and all the hard fought fields of 
the war ! With all their wounds and all their honors, they rise 
and plead with us, for their brethren who survive ; and command 
us, if indeed we cherish the memory of those, who bled in our 
cause, to show our gratitude, not by sounding words but by stretch- 
ing out the strong arm of the country's prosperity, to help the 
veteran survivors gently down to their graves ! 

But it is time to turn from sentiments, on which it is unavailing 
to dwell. The fiftieth return of this all-important day, appears to 
enjoin on us to reassert the principles of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. Have we met, fellow-citizens, to commemorate merely the 

* About the time these words were uttered, Thomas Jefferson breathed his last, 
and toward the close of the afternoon of the same day, John Adams also expired. 
See the following Address. 



10'2 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

successful termination of a war? Certainly not ; the war of 1756 
was, in in duration, nearly equal, and signalized in America by the 
most brilliant achievements of the provincial arms. But no one 
attempts to prevenl thai war, with all its glorious incidents, from 
gradually sinking into the shadows, which time throws back on the 
deeds of men. Do we celebrate the anniversary of our independ- 
ence, merely because a vasl region was severed from an European 
empire, and established a government for itself? Scarcely even 
this; the acquisition of Louisiana, a region larger than the old 
I mhd States, — the almost instantaneous conversion of a vast 
Spanish colonial waste, into free and prosperous members of our 
republican federation. — the whole effected In a single bappy exer- 
cise of the treaty-making power, — this is an event, in nature not 
wholly unlike, in importance not infinitely beneath the separation 
of the colonies from England, regarded merely as an historical trans- 
action. But no one thinks of commemorating with festivals the 
anniversary of this cession ; perhaps not ten who hear me recollect 
the date of the treaty by which it was effected; although it is 
perhaps the most important occurrence in our history, since the 
declaration of independence, and will render the administration of 
.Mr Jefferson memorable, as long as our republic shall endure. 

I5nt it i- not merely nor chiefly the military success nor the po- 
litical event, which we commemorate on these patriotic anniversa- 
ries. We mistake the principle of our celebration when we speak 
of its object, either as a trite theme, or as one among other impor- 
tant and astonishing incidents, of the same kind in the world. The 

declaration of the independence of the United States of America, 

considered, on the one hand as the consummation of a long train of 
measures and counsels, — preparatory, even though unconsciously of 
this event, — and on the other hand, as the foundation of the systems 
of government, which have happily been established in our beloved 
countrj , deserves commemoration, ;i- forming the era. from w bich the 
establishment of governmenl on a rightful foundation is destined uni- 
versally to (late. I looking upon the declaration of independence as 
the one prominent event which is to represent the American system, 
(and history will so look upon it.) I deem it right in itself and sea- 
sonable this day to assert, that, while all other political revolutions, 
reforms, and improvements have been in various ways ol the nature 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 103 

of palliatives and alleviations of systems essentially and irremedia- 
bly vicious, this alone is the great discovery in political science ; 
the practical fulfilment of all the theories of political perfection, 
which had amused the speculations and eluded the grasp of every 
former period and people. Although this festive hour affords but 
little scope for dry disquisition, and shall not be engrossed by me 
with abstract speculation, yet I shall not think I wander from the 
duties of the day, in dwelling briefly on the chain of ideas, by which 
we reach this great conclusion. 

The political organization of a people is of all matters of tem- 
poral concernment the most important. Drawn together into that 
great assemblage, which we call a nation, by the social principle, 
some mode of organization must exist among men ; and on that 
organization depends more directly, more collectively, more per- 
manently, than on any thing else, the condition of the individual 
members that make up the community. On the political organiza- 
tion, in which a people shall for generations have been reared, it 
mainly depends, whether we shall behold in our fellow man the 
New Hollander, making a nauseous meal from the worms which 
he extracts from a piece of rotten wood ;* — the African cutting out 
the under jaw of his captive to be strung on a wire, as a trophy of 
victory, while the mangled wretch is left to bleed to death, on the 
field of battle ;f — or whether we shall behold him social, civilized, 
christian ; scarcely faded from that perfect image, in which 

' in beauty clad, 

With health in every vein, 

And reason throned upon his brow, 

Stepped forth immortal man.' 

Such is the infinite importance to the nations of men of the 
political organization which prevails among them. The most mo- 
mentous practical question, therefore, of course, is, in what way a 
people shall determine the political organization under which it will 
live ; or, in still broader terms, what is a right foundation of gov- 
ernment. Till the establishment of the American constitutions, 
this question had received but one answer in the world ; I mean but 

* Malthus'3 Essay on Population, vol. I. p. 33. Amer. ed. 

t Edwards's History of the West Indies, vol. II. p. 68. 3d ed. 



104 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

one, which obtained for any length of time and among any numer- 
ous people; and that answer was, force. The right of the strong- 
est was the only footing on which the governments of the ancient 
and modem nations were in fact placed ; and the only effort of 
the theorists was, to disguise the simple and some\* bal startling doc- 
trine of the right of the strongest, b) various mystical or popular 
fictions, which in no degree altered its real nature. Of these the 
only two worth) to detain us. od the present occasion, are those of 
the two greal English political parties, the whigs and the tories, as 
tln'\ are called, by names not unlike, in dignity and significance, to 
the doctrines which are designated by them. The tories taught, 
that the only foundation of government was ' divine right ;' and this 
is substantially the same notion, which is still inculcated on the 
continent of Europe ; though the delicate ears of the age are flat- 
tered by the somewhat milder term, legitimacy. The whigs main- 
tained, that the foundation of government was an ' original contract ;' 
but of this contract the existing organization was the record and the 
evidence ; and the obligation was perpetually binding. It may de- 
serve the passing remark, therefore, that in reality the doctrine of the 
whigs in England is a little less liberal than that of the tories. To 
Say, that the will of God is the warrant, by which the king and his 
hereditary counsellors govern the land, is, to be sure, in a practical 
sense, what the illustrious sage of the Revolution, surviving in our 
neighborhood, dared, as early as 1765, to pronounce it, 'dark 
ribaldry. 9 But in a merely speculative sense, it may, without 
offence, be said, that government, like every thing else, subsists by 
the Divine will ; and in this acceptation, there is a certain elevation 
and unction in the sentiment. But to say, that the form of gov- 
ernment is matter of original compact with the people; that my 

ancestors, ages ago, agreed that they and their prosperity, to the 

end of time, should give up to a certain line of princes the rule ol 
the state ; that no right remains of revising this compact : that 
nothing but extreme necessity, a necessity which it is treasonable 
even to attempl to define beforehand, justifies a departure from this 
compact, in which no provision is made, that the will of the major- 
ity should prevail, but the contrary : veins to me to be a use of 

language, not in itself more rational, and obnoxious to the charge, 

of affecting a liberality which it does not possess. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 105 

And now, fellow citizens, I think I speak the words of truth, 
without exaggeration, when I say, thai before the establishment of 
our American constitutions, this tory doctrine of the divine right 
was the most common, and this whig doctrine of the original eon- 
tract was professedly the most liberal doctrine, ever maintained by 
any political parly in any powerful state. I do not mean, that in 
some of the little Grecian republics, during their short-lived noon 
of liberty and glory, nothing better was practised ; nor that, in 
other times and places, speculative politicians had not in their clos- 
ets dreamed of a better foundation of government. Urn I do mean, 
thai, whereas the whigs in England are the party of politicians who 
have enjoyed, hy general consent, the credil of inculcating a more 
libera] system, this notion of the compact is tin; extent to which 
their liberality went. 

It is plain, whichever of these phrases, — 'divine right,' or 'orig- 
inal compact,' — we may prefer to use, that the right of the strong- 
est lies at the foundation of both, in the same way, and to the 
same degree. The doctrine of the divine right gives to the ruler 
authority to sustain himself against the people, not merely because 
resistance is unlawful, hut because it is sacrilegious. The doctrine 
of the compact denounces every attempted change in the person 
of the prince as a breach of faith, and as such also not only treas- 
onable hut immoral. When a conflict ensues, force alone, of 
course, decides which party shall prevail ; and when force has so 
decided, all the sanctions of the divine vvill and of the social com- 
pact revive in favor of the successful party. Even the statute 
legislation of England allows the successful usurper to claim tin; 
allegiance of the subject, in as full a manner as it could he done by 
a lawful sovereign. 

Nothing is wanting to fill up this sketch of other governments, 
but to consider what is the form in which force is exercised to sus- 
tain them ; and this is that of a standing army ; — at this moment, 
the chief support of every government on earth, except our own. 
As popular violence, the unrestrained and irresistible force of the 
mass of men, long oppressed and late awakened, and bursting in 
its wrath all harriers of law and humanity, — is unhappily the 
usual instrument by which the intolerable abuses of a corrupt gov- 
ernment are removed ; so the same blind force of the same (earful 
13 



1U0 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

multitude, systematically kept in ignorance both of their duty and 
their privileges as citizens, employed in a form somewhat different 
indeed, but far more dreadful, — that of a mercenary standing army, 
— is the instrument by which corrupt governments are sustained. 
The deplorable scenes w hich marked the earlier stages of the French 
Revolution have called the attention of this age to the fearful effects 
of popular violence ; and the minds of men have recoiled from the 
horrors which lead the van, and the desolation which marks the 
progress of an infuriated mob. Bui the power of the mob is tran- 
sient; the rising sun most commonly scatters its mistrustful ranks; 
the difficulty of subsistence drives its members asunder; and it is 
only while it exists in mass, that it is terrible. But there is a form, 
in which the mob is indeed portentous; when to all its native ter- 
rors it adds the force of a frightful permanence; when, by a regular 
organization, its strength is so curiously divided, and by a stricl 
discipline its parts are so easily combined, that each and every por- 
tion of it carries in its presence the strength and terror of the whole; 
and when, instead of that want of concert which renders the com- 
mon mob incapable of arduous enterprises, it is despotically sway< d 
by a single master mind, and may be moved in array across the 
globe. 

I remember, (if, on such a subject, 1 may be pardoned an illus- 
tration approaching the ludicrous,) to have seen the two kinds of 
mob brought into direct collision. I was present at the second great 
meeting of the populace of London in L819, in the midst of a 
crowd of I know not how many thousand-, but assuredly a vasl 
multitude, which was gathered together in Smithfield market. The 
universal distress was extreme; il was a short time after the scenes 
at Manchester, at which the public mind was exasperated : — deaths 
by starvation were -aid not to be rare; — ruin by the Stagnation of 

business was general ; — and some were ahead) brooding over the 
dark projecl of assassinating the ministers, which was not long after 
matured bj Thistlewood and his associates; some of whom, on the 
day to winch 1 allude, harangued this excited, desperate, starving 
assemblage. When I considered the state of feeling prevailing in 

the multitude around me. — when 1 looked in their low ci'in- fac< . 

— heard their deep, indignant exclamations. — reflected nn the 
physical force concentrated, probahk that of thirty or torn thousand 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 107 

able-bodied men ; and added to all this, that they were assembled 
to exercise an undoubted privilege of British citizens ; I did sup- 
pose that any small number of troops, who should attempt to 
interrupt them, would be immolated on the spot. While I was 
musing on these things, and turning in my mind the commonplaces 
on the terrors of a mob, a trumpet was heard to sound, — an uncer- 
tain, but a harsh and clamorous blast. I looked that the surround- 
ing stalls, in the market, should have furnished the unarmed multi- 
tude at least with that weapon, with which Virginius sacrificed his 
daughter to the liberty of Rome ; I looked that the flying pave- 
ment should begin to darken the air. Another blast is heard, — a 
cry of ' The horse-guards ! ' ran through the assembled thousands ; 
the orators on the platform were struck mute ; and the whole of 
that mighty host of starving, desperate men incontinently took to their 
heels ; in which, I must confess, — feeling no call, on that occasion, 
to be faithful found, among the faithless, — I did myself join them. 
We had run through the Old Bailey and reached Ludgate hill, 
before we found out that we had been put to flight by a single 
mischievous tool of power, who had come triumphing down the 
opposite street on horseback, blowing a stage-coachman's horn. 

We have heard of those midnight scenes of desolation, when the 
populace of some overgrown capital, exhausted by the extremity of 
political oppression, or famishing at the gates of luxurious palaces, 
or kindled by some transport of fanatical zeal rushes out to find the 
victims of its fury ; the lurid glare of torches, casting their gleams 
on faces dark with rage ; the ominous din of the alarm bell, strik- 
ing with affright on the broken visions of the sleepers ; the horrid 
yells, the thrilling screams, the multitudinous roar of the living 
storm, as it sweeps onward to its objects ; — but oh, the disciplined, 
the paid, the honored mob ; not moving in rags and starvation to 
some act of blood or plunder ; but marching, in all the pomp and 
circumstance of war, to lay waste a feebler state ; or cantoned at 
home among an overawed and broken-spirited people ! 1 have 
read of granaries plundered, of castles sacked, and their inmates 
cruelly murdered, by the ruthless hands of the mob. I have read 
of friendly states ravaged, governments overturned, tyrannies found- 
ed and upheld, proscriptions executed, fruitful regions turned into 



108 I:\KKI.1I-S t (RATIONS. 

trampled deserts, i lie tide of civilization thrown back, and a line of 
generations cursed, by a well organized system of military force. 

Such was the foundation in theory and in practice of all the 
governments which can be considered as having had a permanent 

existence in the world, he fore the Revolution in this country. 

There arc certainly shades of difference between the oriental des- 
potisms, ancient and modern, — the military empire of Rome. — the 
feudal sovereignties of the middle ages, — and the Legitimate mon- 
archies of the present day. Some were and are more, and some 
less, susceptible of melioration in practice : and of all of them it 
might perhaps be said, — being all in essence bad, 

•That, which is best administered, is best.' 

In no one of these governments, nor in any government, was the 
truth admitted, that the only just foundation of all government is 
the will of the people. If it ever occurred to the practical or 
theoretical politician, thai such an idea deserved examination, the 
experimenl was thought to have been made in the republics of 
Greece, and to have failed : as fail it certainly did, from the physi- 
cal impossibility of conducting the business of the state In the 
actual intervention of every citizen. Such a plan of government 
nausl of course fail : if for no other reason, at leasl for this, thai it 
would prevent the citizen from pursuing his own business, which it 
is the object of all government to enable him to do. It was con- 
sidered then as settled, that the citizen-, each and all. could not he 
"Mini, icnt: someone or more must discharge its duties for 
them. Who shall do this ; — how shall they be designated? 

The first king was a fortunate soldier, and the first nobleman 
was one of his generals ; and government has passed bj descenl to 
their posterity, with no other interruption than has taken place, 
when -nine new soldier of fortune has broken in upon this line of 
ion, in favor of himself and of his generals. The people 
have passed for nothing in the plan; and whenever it has occurred 
to a bus) genius to pul the question, I5\ what righl is government 
thus exercised and transmitted ? the common answer, as we have 
has been, l>\ divine right; while in times of rare illumina- 
tion, men have b< en consoled with the assurance, that such was the 
.1 d contract. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 109 

But a brighter day and a better dispensation were in reserve. 
The founders of the feudal system, barbarous, arbitrary, and des- 
potic as they were, and profoundly ignorant of political science, 
were animated by a spirit of personal liberty ; out of which, after 
ages of conflict, grew up a species of popular representation. In 
the eye of the feudal system, the king was the first baron, and 
standing within his own sphere, each other baron was as good as 
the first. From this important relation, in which the feudal lords 
of England claimed to stand to their prince, arose the practice of 
their being consulted by him, in great and difficult conjunctures of 
affairs ; and hence the cooperation of a grand council, (subsequently 
convened in two houses under the name of parliament,) in making 
the laws and administering the government. The formation of this 
body has proved a great step in the progress of popular rights ; its 
influence has been decisive in breaking the charm of absolute mon- 
archy, and giving to a body partially elegible by the people a share 
in the government. It has also operated most auspiciously on lib- 
erty, by exhibiting to the world, on the theatre of a conspicuous 
nation, a living example, that in proportion as the rights and inter- 
ests of a people are represented in a government, in that degree the 
state becomes strong and prosperous. Thus far the science and the 
practice of government had gone in England, and here it had 
come to a stand. An equal representation, even in the House of 
Commons, was unthought of; or thought of only as one of the 
exploded abominations of Cromwell. It is asserted by Mr Hume, 
writing about the middle of the last century, and weighing this sub- 
ject with equal moderation and sagacity, that ' the tide has run 
long and with some rapidity, to the side of popular government, 
and is just beginning to turn toward monarchy.' And he maintains 
that the British constitution is, though slowly, yet gradually verging 
toward an absolute government. 

Such was the state of political science, when the independence 
of our country was declared, and its constitution organized on the 
basis of that declaration. The precedents in favor of a popular 
system were substantially these, — the short-lived .prosperity of the 
republics of Greece, where each citizen took part in the conduct of 
affairs ; and the admission into the British government of one branch 
of the legislature nominally elective, and operating, rather by opin- 



110 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

ion than power, as a partial check on the oilier branches.. What 
lights these precedents gave them, our fathers had; beyond this, 
they owed every thing to their own wisdom and courage, in daring 
to carry out and apply to the executive branch of the government 
that system of delegated power, of which the elements existed in 
their own provincial assemblies. They assumed, at once, not as a 
matter to be reached by argumentation, but as the dictate of unaid- 
ed reason. — as an axiom too obvious to be discussed, though never 
in practice applied, — that where the state is too large to be govern- 
ed by an actual assembly of all the citizens, the people shall elect 
those, who will act for them, in making the laws and administering 
the government. They, therefore, laid the basis of their constitu- 
tions in a proportionate delegation of power from every part of the 
community ; and regarding the declaration of our independence as 
the true era of our institutions, we are authorized to assert, that from 
that era dates the establishmenl of the only perfect organization of 
government, that of a Representative Republic, administered by 
persons freely chosen by the people. 

The plan of government is therefore, in its theory, perfect ; and 
in its operation it is perfect also; — thai is to say, no measure of 
policy, public or private, domestic or foreign, can long be pursued, 
against the will of a majority of the people. Farther than this the 
wisdom of government cannot go. The majority of the people 
may err. Man collectively, as well as individually, is man still ; 
hut whom can you more safely trust than the majority of the peo- 
ple? who is so likely to he right, always right, and altogether right, 
a- the collective majority of a greal and civilized nation, represent- 
ed in all it> interests and pursuits, and in all its communities ? 

Thus ha- been solved the greal problem in human affairs; and 
a frame of government, perfect in its principles, has been brought 
down from the airy regions of I topia, and ha- found -a local hab- 
itation ami a name' in OUT country. Henceforward we have only 
to strive that the practical operation of our systems may he true to 
their spiril and theory. Henceforth it may he said of ns. what 
never could be said of any people, since the world began, — be our 
sufferings whal they will, no one can attribute them to our frame 

of government : le can point out a principle in our political 

m, ol which he has had reason to c plain ; no one can sigh 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. Ill 

for a change in his country's institutions, as a boon to be desired 
for himself or for his children. There is not an apparent defect in 
our constitutions which could be removed without introducing a 
greater one ; nor a real evil, whose removal would not be rather a 
nearer approach to the principles on which they are founded, than 
a departure from them. 

And what, fellow citizens, are to be the fruits to us and to the 
world, of the establishment of this perfect system of government? 
I might partly answer the inquiry, by reminding you what have 
been the fruits to us and to the world ; by inviting you to compare 
our beloved country, as it is, in extent of settlement, in numbers 
and resources, in the useful and ornamental arts, in the abundance 
of the common blessings of life, in the general standard of character, 
in the means of education, in the institutions for social objects, 
in the various great industrious interests, in public strength and 
national respectability, with what it was in all these respects fifty 
years ago. But the limits of this occasion will not allow us to 
engage in such an enumeration ; and it will be amply sufficient for 
us to contemplate in its principle, the beneficial operation on 
society, of the form of government bequeathed to us by our fathers. 
This principle is Equality ; the equal enjoyment by every citizen 
of the rights and privileges of the social union. 

The principle of all other governments is monopoly, exclusion, 
favor. They secure great privileges to a small number, and neces- 
sarily at the expense of all the rest of the citizens. 

In the keen conflict of minds, which preceded and accompanied 
the political convulsions of the last generation, the first principles 
of society were canvassed with a boldness and power before un- 
known in Europe ; and, from the great principle that all men are 
equal, it was for the first time triumphantly inferred, as a necessary 
consequence, that the will of a majority of the people is the rule of 
government. To meet these doctrines, so appalling .in their ten- 
dency to the existing institutions of Europe, new ground was also 
taken by the champions of those institutions, and particularly by a 
man, whose genius, eloquence, and integrity gave a currency, which 
nothing else could have given, to his splendid paradoxes. In one of 
his renowned productions,* this great man, — for great, almost beyond 

* The Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs. 



1 12 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

rivals . even in his errors, most assuredly he was, — in order to meet 
the inference drawn from the equalitj of man, that the will of the 
majority must he the rule of government, lias undertaken, as he 
si\ s, • to ti\, w iih some degree <>f distinctness, an idea of w hat it is 
we mean, when we sav, the People; 5 and in fulfilment of this 
design, he lays it down, • that in a state of rude nature, there is no 
Mich thing as a people. A number of men, in themselves, can 

have no Collective Capacity. The idea of a people i> the idea of a 

corporation; it is wholly artificial, and made like all other legal 
fictions, by common agreement. 5 

• In a State of rude nature, there is no sueh thing as a people!' 
I would lain learn in what corner of the earth, rude or civilized, 
men arc to he found, who are not a people, more or less improved. 
•A number of men in themselves have no eollecthe capacity!' 
I would gladly he told where, — in what region, I will not say of 
geography, hut of poetry or romance. — a number of men has been 
placed. h\ nature, each standing alone, and not bound by am of 
those ties of blood, affinity, and language, which form the rudi- 
ments of a collective capacity. ' The idea of a people is.the idea 
of a corporation: it is wholly artificial, and made like all other 
legal fictions, by common agreement.' Indeed, .is the social prin- 
ciple artificial: is the gift of articulate speech, which enables man 
to imparl his condition to man. the organized sense, which enables 
him to comprehend whal is imparted? is that sympathy, which 
subjects our opinions and feelings, and through them our conduct, 
to the influence of others, and their conduct to our influence : i> 
that chain of cause and effect, which makes our characters receive 
impressions from the generations before us, and puts it in our power, 
by a good or had precedent, to distil a poison or a halm into the 
characters of posterity. — are these, indeed, all by-laws of a corpor- 
ation ? Are all the feelings of ancestry, posterity, and fellow- 
citizenship; all the charm, veneration and love, bound up in the 
name of country; the delight, the enthusiasm, with which we seek 
out, after the lapse <>f generations and ages, the traces of our 
fathers' bravery or wisdom, are these all -a legal fiction? 5 I- it. 
indeed, a legal fiction, thai moistens the eye of the solitary traveller, 

w hen he meets a COUntrj man in a foreign land ? Is it a ' common 

raent, 5 that gives its meaning to mj mother tongue, and en- 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 113 

ables me to speak to the hearts of my kindred men, beyond the 
rivers and beyond the mountains ? Yes, it is a common agreement; 
recorded on the same registry with that, which marshals the winged 
nations, that, 

In common, ranged in figure, wedge their way, 
Intelligent of seasons; and set forth 
Their aery caravan, high over seas 
Flying, and over lands, with mutual wing 
Easing their flight. 

The mutual dependence of man on man, family on family, in- 
terest on interest, is but a chapter in the great law, not of corpora- 
tions, but of nature. The law, by which commerce, manufactures, 
and agriculture support each other, is the same law, in virtue of 
which the thirsty earth owes its fertility to the rivers and the rains ; 
and the clouds derive their hitdi-travellino- waters from the rising 
vapors ; and the ocean is fed from the secret springs of the moun- 
tains ; and the plant that grows derives its increase from the plant 
that decays ; and all subsist and thrive, not by themselves but 
by others, in the great political economy of nature. The necessary 
cohesion of the parts of the political system is no more artificial, 
than the gravity of the natural system, in which planet is bound to 
planet, and all to the sun, and the sun to all. And yet the great 
political, intellectual, moral system, which we call a People, is a 
legal fiction ! ' O that mine enemy had said it,' the admirers of 
Mr Burke may well exclaim. O that some ruthless Voltaire, some 
impious Rousseau had uttered it. Had uttered it ? Rousseau did 
utter the same thing ; and more rebuked than any other error of 
this misguided genius, is his doctrine of the Social Contract, of 
which Burke has reasserted, and more than reasserted the principle, 
in the sentences I have quoted. 

But no, fellow citizens ; political society exists by the law of 
nature. Man is formed for it ; every man is formed for it ; every 
man has an equal right to its privileges ; and to be deprived of 
them, under whatever pretence, is so far to be reduced to slavery. 
The authors of the declaration of independence saw this, and taught 
that all men are born free and equal. On this principle, our con- 
stitutions rest ; and no constitution can bind a people on any other 
principle. No original contract, that gives away this right, can 
14 



114 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

bind any but the parties to it. My forefathers could not, if they 
had wished, have stipulated to their king, that his children should 
rule over their children. By the introduction of this principle of 
equality it is, that the declaration of independence has at once 
effected a before unimagined extension of social privileges. Grant 
that no new blessing (which, however, can by no means with 
truth be granted) he introduced into the world on this plan of 
equality, still it will have discharged the inestimable office of com- 
municating, in equal proportion, to all the citizens, those privileges 
of the social union, which were before partitioned in an invidious 
gradation, profusely among the privileged orders, and parsimoni- 
ously among the rest. Let me instance in the right of suffrage. 
The enjoyment of this right enters hugely into the happiness of 
the social condition. I do not mean, that it is necessary to our 
happiness actually to exercise this right at every election ; but I 
say, the right itself to give our voice in the choice of public ser- 
vants, and the management of public affairs, is so precious, so 
inestimable, that there is not a citizen who hears me, that would 
not lay down his life to assert it. This is a right unknown in 
every country but ours ; I say unknown, because in England, 
whose institutions make the nearest approach to a popular charac- 
ter, the elective suffrage is not only incredibly unequal and capri- 
cious in its distribution, — but extends, after all, only to the choice 
of a minority of one house of the legislature.* Thus then the 
people of this country are, by their constitutions of government, 
endowed with a new source of enjoyment, elsewhere almost un- 
known ; a great and substantial happiness ; a real happiness. 
Most of the desirable things of life bear a high price in the world's 
market. Every thing usually deemed a great good, must, for its 
attainment, be weighed down, in the opposite scale, with what is 
as usually deemed a great evil, — labor, care, danger. It is only 
the unbought, spontaneous, essential circumstances of our nature and 
condition, thai yield a liberal enjoyment. Our religious hopes, 
intellectual meditations, social sentiments, family affections, political 
privileges, these are springs of unpurchased happiness ; and to 
condemn men to live under an arbitrary government, is to cut 

* These remarki, it will be observed from the date of the address, were mude 

several years before the Reform of the House of Commons, 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 115 

them oft" from nearly all the satisfaction, which nature designed 
should flow from those principles within us, by which a tribe of 
kindred men is constituted a people. 

But it is not merely an extension to all the members of society, 
of those blessings, which, under other systems, are monopolized by 
a few ; — great and positive improvements, I feel sure, are destined 
to flow from the introduction of the republican system. The first 
of these will be, to make wars less frequent, and finally to cause 
them to cease altogether. It was not a republican, it was the sub- 
ject of a monarchy, and no patron of novelties, who said, 

War is a game, which, were their suhjects wise, 
Kings would not play at. 

A great majority of the wars, which have desolated mankind, have 
been caused by the disputed titles and rival claims of sovereigns, 
or by their personal characters, particularly their ambition, or the 
character of their favorites, or by some other circumstance evident- 
ly incident to a form of government, which withholds from the 
people the ultimate control of affairs. And the more civilized 
men grow, strange as it may seem, the more universally is this 
the case. In the barbarous ages the people pursued war as an 
occupation ; its plunder was more profitable, than their labor at 
home, in the state of general insecurity. In modern times, princes 
raise their soldiers by conscription, their sailors by impressment, 
and drive them at the point of the bayonet and dirk, into the battles 
they fight for reasons of state. But in a republic, where the peo- 
ple, by their representatives, must vote the declaration of war, and 
afterwards raise the means of its support, none but wars of just and 
necessary defence can be easily waged. Republics, we are told, 
indeed, are ambitious, — a seemingly wise remark, devoid of mean- 
ing. Man — man is ambitious ; and the question is, where will his 
ambition be most likely to drive his country into war ; in a monar- 
chy where he has but to ' cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war,' 
or in a republic, where he must get a vote of a strong majority of 
the nation ? Let history furnish the answer. The book, which 
promised you, in its title, a picture of the progress of the human 
family, turns out to be a record, not of the human family, but of 



116 EVERETT'S ORATION-. 

the Macedonian family, the Julian family, the families of York 
and Lancaster, of Lorraine and Bourbon. We need not go to the 
ancient annals to confirm this remark, We Deed not speak of 
those, who reduced Asia and Africa, in the morning of the world, 
to a vassalage from which they have aever recovered. We need 
not dwell on the more notorious exploits of the Alexanders and 
the Caesars, the men who wept' for other worlds to visit with the 
pestilence of their arms. We need not run down the blood v line 
of the dark ages, when the barbarous .North disgorged her ambi- 
tious savages on Europe, or when at a later period, barbarous 
Europe poured back her holy ruffians on Asia; we need but look 
at the dates of modern history, — the history of civilized, balanced 
Europe. We here behold the ambition of Charles V, involving 
the continent of Europe in war, for the first half of the sixteenth 
century, and the fiendlike malignity of Catherine de' Medici and 
her kindred, distracting it the other half. We see the haughty and 
cheerless bigotry of Philip, persevering in a conflict of extermin- 
ation for one whole age in the Netherlands, and darkening the 
English channel with his armada ; while France prolongs her civil 
dimensions, because Henry IV was the twenty-second cousin of 
Henry 111. We enter the seventeenth century, and again i'md the 
pride and bigotry of the House of Austria wasting Germany and 
the neighboring powers with the Thirty Years' war ; and before 
the peace of Westphalia is concluded, England is plunged, by the 
Smarts, into the fiery trial of her militant liberties. Contempora- 
neously, the civil wars are revived in France, and the kingdom is 
blighted by the passions of Mazarin. The civil wars are healed. 
and the atrocious career of Louis XIV begins ; a half century ol 
bloodshed and woe, that stands in revolting contrast with the pal- 
try pretencesof his wars. At length the peace of Ryswic is 
made in 1(>!)7. and bleeding Europe throws oil* the harness and 
lies down like an exhausted gianl to repose. In three years, the 
testament of a doating Spanish king gives the signal for the Suc- 
cession war; till a cup of tea spilt on Mrs Masham's apron, 
restores peace to the afflicted kingdoms. .Meantime the madman 
of the North had broken loose upon the world, and was running 
his frantic round. Peace at Length is restored, and with one or 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 117 

two short wars, it remains unbroken, till, in 1740, the will of 
Charles VI occasions another testamentary contest ; and in the 
gallant words of the stern but relenting moralist, 

The Queen, the beauty, sets the world in arms. 

Eight years are this lime sufficient to exhaust the combatants, and 
the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle is concluded ; but, in 1755, the old 
French war is kindled in our own wilderness, and through the 
united operation of the feuds in England, which sprang from the 
disputed succession to the Crown, the corruption of the French 
court, and the ambition of Frederic, spreads throughout Europe. 
The wars of the last generation I need not name, nor dwell on 
that signal retribution, by which the political ambition of the cabi- 
nets at length conjured up the military ambition of the astonishing 
individual, who seems, in our day, to have risen out of the ranks 
of the people, to chastise the privileged orders with that iron 
scourge, with which they had so long afflicted mankind ; to gather 
with his strong Plebeian hands the' fragrance of those palmy honors, 
which they had reared for three centuries in the bloody gardens of 
their royalty. It may well be doubted, whether, under a govern- 
ment like ours, one of all these contests would have taken place. 
Those that arose from disputed titles, and bequests of thrones, 
could not of course have existed ; and making every allowance for 
the effect of popular delusion, it seems to me not possible, that a 
representative government would have embarked in any of the 
wars of ambition and aggrandizement, which fill up the catalogue. 
Who then are these families and individuals — these royal lanista 
— by whom the nations are kept in training for a long gladiatorial 
combat? Are they better, wiser than we? Look at them in life ; 
what are they ? ' Kings are fond,' says Mr Burke, no scoffer at 
thrones, ' Kings are fond of low company.'* What are they when 
gone ? Expende Hannibalem. Enter the great cathedrals of 
Europe, and contemplate the sepulchres of the men, who claimed 
to be the lords of each successive generation. Question your own 
feelings, as you behold where the Plantagenets and Tudors, the 
Stuarts and those of Brunswick lie mournfully huddled up in the 

* Speech on Economical Reform. 



118 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

chapels of Westminster Abbey ; and compare those feelings with 
the homage you pay to Heaven's aristocracy, — the untitled learn- 
ing, genius, and wit that moulder by their side. Count over the 
sixty-six emperors and princes of the Austrian house, that lie 
gathered in the dreary pomp of monumental marble, in the vaults 
of the Capuchins at Vienna; and weigh the worth of their dust 
against the calamities of their Peasants' war, their Thirty Years' 
war, their Succession war, their wars to enforce the Pragmatic 
Sanction, and of all the other uncouth pretences for destroying 
mankind, with which they have plagued the world. 

But the cessation of wars, to which we look forward as the 
result of the gradual diffusion of republican government, is but the 
commencement of the social improvements, which cannot but flow 
from the same benignant source. It has been justly said that he 
was a great benefactor of mankind, who could make two blades of 
grass grow, where one grew before. But our fathers were the 
great benefactors of mankind, who brought into action such a vast 
increase of physical, political, and moral energy ; who have made 
not two citizens to live only, but hundreds, yea, unnumbered 
thousands, to live and to prosper in regions, which but for their 
achievements would have remained for ages unsettled, and to enjoy 
those rights of men, which but for their institutions would have 
continued to be arrogated, as the exclusive inheritance of a few. 
I appeal to the fact. 1 ask any sober judge of political probability 
to tell me. whether more has not been done to extend the domain 
of civilization, in fifty years, since the declaration of independence, 
than would have been done in five centuries of continued colonial 
subjection. It is not even a matter of probability ; the king in 
council had adopted it, as a maxim of his American policy, that 
no settlements in this country should he made beyond the Allegha- 
nies ; — that the design of Providence in spreading out the fertile 
valley of the Mississippi, should not be fulfilled. 

1 know that it is said, in palliation of the restrictive influence of 
European governments, that they are as good as their subjects can 
bear. I know it is said, that it would be useless and pernicious to 
call on the half savage and brutified peasantry of manv countries, 
to take a share in the administration of affairs, by electing or being 
elected to office. I know they are unfit for it ; it is the very curse 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 119 

of the system. What is it that unfits them ? What is it that 
makes slavish labor, and slavish ignorance, and slavish stupidity, 
their necessary heritage ? Are they not made of the same Cauca- 
sian clay ? Have they not five senses, the same faculties, the 
same passions ? And is it any thing but an aggravation of the vice 
of arbitrary governments, that they first deprive men of their rights, 
and then unfit them to exercise those rights ; profanely construing 
the effect into a justification of the evil ? 

The influence of our institutions on foreign nations is, — next to 
their effect on our own condition, — tbe most interesting question 
we can contemplate. With our example of popular government 
before their eyes, the nations of the earth will not eventually be 
satisfied with any other. With the French Revolution as a beacon 
to guide them, they will learn, we may hope, not to embark too 
rashly on the mounting waves of reform. The cause, however, of 
popular government is rapidly gaining in the world. In England, 
education is carrying it wide and deep into society. On the conti- 
nent, written constitutions of governments, nominally representative, 
— though as yet, it must be owned, nominally so alone, — are adopted 
in eight or ten late absolute monarchies ; and it is not without good 
grounds that we may trust, that the indifference with which the 
Christian powers contemplate the sacrifice of Greece, and their 
crusade against the constitutions of Spain, Piedmont, and Naples, 
will satisfy the mass of thinking men in Europe, that it is time to 
put an end to these cruel delusions, and take their own government 
into their own hands. 

But the great triumphs of constitutional freedom, to which our 
independence has furnished the example, have been witnessed in 
the southern portion of our hemisphere. Sunk to the last point of 
colonial degradation, they have risen at once into the organization 
of free republics. Their struggle has been arduous ; and eighteen 
years of chequered fortune have not yet brought it to a close. But 
we must not infer, from their prolonged agitation, that their inde- 
pendence is uncertain ; that they have prematurely put on the toga 
virilis of Freedom. They have not begun too soon ; they have 
more to do. Our war of independence was shorter ; — happily we 
were contending with a government, that could not, like that of 



120 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

Spain, pursue an interminable and hopeless contest, in defiance of 
the people's will. Our transition to a mature and well-adjusted 
constitution was more prompt than that of our sister republics ; for 
the foundations had been long settled, the preparation long made. 
And when we consider that it is our example, which has aroused 
the spirit of Independence from California to Cape Horn; that 
the experiment of liberty, if it had failed with us, most surely 
would not have been attempted by them ; that even now our coun- 
sels and acts will operate as powerful precedents in this great fam- 
ily of republics, we learn the importance of the post which Provi- 
dence has assigned us in the world. A wise and harmonious 
administration of the public affairs, — a faithful, liberal, and patriotic 
exercise of the private duties of the citizen, — while they secure 
our happiness at home, will diffuse a healthful influence through 
the channels of national communication, and serve the cause of 
liberty beyond the Equator and the Andes. When we show a 
united, conciliatory, and imposing front to their rising states, we 
show them, better than sounding eulogies can do, the true aspect 
of an independent republic. We give them a living example that 
the fireside policy of a people is like that of the individual man. 
As the one, commencing in the prudence, order, and industry of 
the private circle, extends itself to all the duties of social life, of 
the family, the neighborhood, the country ; so the true domestic 
policy of the republic, beginning in the wise organization of its own 
institutions, pervades its territories with a vigilant, prudent, temper- 
ate administration ; and extends the hand of cordial interest to all 
the friendly nations, especially to those which are of the household 
of Libert} . 

It is in this way, that we are to fulfil our destiny in the world. 
The greatest engine of moral power, which human nature knows. 
is an organized, prosperous state. All that man, in his individual 
capacity, can do, — all that he can effect by his fraternities, — by 
his ingenious discoveries and wonders of art. — or by his influence 
over others, — is as Qothing, compared with the collective, perpetu- 
ated influence on human affairs and human happiness of a well 
constituted, powerful commonwealth. It blesses generations with 
it- sweet influence; — even the barren earth seems to pour out its 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 121 

fruits under a system where property is secure, while her fairest 
gardens are blighted by despotism. Men, thinking, reasoning men, 
abound beneath its benignant sway. Nature enters into a beautiful 
accord, a better, purer asiento with man, and guides an industrious 
citizen to every rood of her smiling wastes ; — and we see, at length, 
that what has been called a state of nature, has been most falsely, 
calumniously so denominated ; that the nature of man is neither 
that of a savage, a hermit, nor a slave ; but that of a member of a 
well-ordered family, that of a good neighbor, a free citizen, a well- 
informed, good man, acting with others like him. This is the les- 
son which is taught in the charter of our independence ; this is the 
lesson which our example is to teach the world. 



15 



ADDRESS 

DELIVERED AT CHARLESTOWN, AUGUST 1, 1826, IN COMMEMORA- 
TION OF JOHN ADAMS AND THOMAS JEFFERSON. 



Friend3 and Fellow Citizens, 

We are assembled, beneath the weeping canopy of the 
heavens, in the exercise of feelings, in which the whole family of 
Americans unites with us. We meet to pay a tribute of respect to 
the revered memory of those, to whom the whole country looks up 
as to its benefactors ; to whom it ascribes the merit of unnum- 
bered public services, and especially of the inestimable service of 
having led in the councils of the Revolution. It is natural, that 
these feelings, which pervade the whole American people, should 
rise into peculiar strength and earnestness in your hearts. In med- 
itating upon these great men, your minds are unavoidably carried 
back to those scenes of suffering and of sacrifice into which, at the 
opening of their arduous and honored career, this town and its 
citizens were so deeply plunged. You cannot but remember, that 
your fathers offered their bosoms to the sword, and their dwellings 
to the devouring flames, from the same noble spirit which animated 
the venerable patriarchs whom we now deplore. The cause they 
espoused was the same which strewed your streets with ashes, and 
drenched your hill-tops with blood. And while Providence, in 
the astonishing circumstances of their departure, seems to have 
appointed that the revolutionary age of America should be closed 
up. by a scene as illustriously affecting, as its commencement was 
appalling and terrific ; you have justly felt it your duty, — it has 
been the prompt dictate of your feelings, — to pay, within these 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 123 

hallowed precincts, a well-deserved tribute to the great and good 
men to whose counsels, under God, it is in no small degree owing, 
that your dwellings have risen from their ashes, and that the sacred 
dust of those who fell reposes in the bosom of a free and happy 
land. 

It was the custom of the primitive Romans, to preserve in the 
halls of their houses the images of all the illustrious men, whom 
their families had produced. These images are supposed to have 
consisted of a mask exactly representing the countenance of each 
deceased individual, accompanied with habiliments of like fashion 
with those worn in his time, and with the armor, badges, and in- 
signia of his offices and exploits ; all so disposed around the sides 
of the hall as to present in the attitude of living men the long 
succession of the departed ; and thus to set before the Roman 
citizen, whenever he entered or left his habitation, the venerable 
array of his ancestors revived in this imposing similitude. When- 
ever, by a death in the family, another distinguished member of it 
was gathered to his fathers, a strange and awful procession was 
formed. The ancestral masks, including that of the newly deceas- 
ed, were 6tted upon the servants of the family, selected in the size 
and appearance of those whom they were intended to represent, 
and drawn up in solemn array to follow the funeral train of the 
living mourners, first to the market-place, where the public eulogium 
was pronounced, and then to the tomb. As he thus moved along, 
with all the dark fathers of his name, resuscitated in the lineaments 
of life, and quickening, as it were, from their urns, to enkindle his 
emulation, the virtuous Roman renewed his vows of pious respect 
to their memory, and his resolution to imitate the fortitude, the 
frugality, and the patriotism of the great heads of his family.* 

Fellow citizens, the great heads of the American family are fast 
passing away ; of the last, of the most honored, two are now no 
more. We are assembled not to gaze with awe on the artificial 
and theatric images of their features, but to contemplate their ven- 
erated characters, to call to mind their invaluable services, to cher- 
ish their revered memory ; to lay up the image of their virtues in 
our hearts. The two men, who stood in a relation, in which no 

* Polyb. Historian lib. VI. 



124 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

others now stand to this whole continent, have fallen. The men 
whom Providence marked out among the first of the favored instru- 
ments, to lead this chosen people into the holy land of liberty, 
have discharged their high office, and are no more. The men, 
whose anient minds prompted them to take up their country's cause, 
when there was nothing else to prompt, and every thing to deter 
them ; the men who afterwards, when the ranks were filled w ith 
the brave and resolute, were yet in the front of those brave and 
resolute ranks ; the men, who, when the w isest and most sagacious 
were needed to steer the newly launched vessel through the broken 
waves of the unknown sea, sat calm and unshaken at the helm ; 
the men, who, in their country's happier days, were' found most 
worthy to preside over the great interests of the land they had so 
powerfully contributed to rear into greatness, — these men are now 
no more. 

They have left us not singly and in the sad but accustomed suc- 
cession, in which the order of nature calls away the children of 
men ; but having lived, and acted, and counselled, and dared, and 
risked all, and triumphed, and enjoyed together, they have gone 
together to their greal reward. In tin 1 morning of life, — without 
previous concert, bul with a kindred spirit, — they plunged together 
into a conflict, which put to hazard all which makes life precious. 
When the storm of war and revolution raged, they stood side by 
side, on such perilous ground, that, had the American cause failed, 
though all else had been forgiven, they were of the few whom an 
incensed empire's vengeance would have pursued to the ends ot 
the earth. When they had served through their long career of duty, 
forgetting the little that had divided them, and cherishing the great 
communion of service, and peril, and success, which had united 
them, they walked, with honorable friendship, the declining path- 
way of age; and now they have sunk down together, in peace, 
into the bosom of a redeemed and grateful country. Time, ami 
their country's service, and kindred hearts, a like fortune and a like 
reward united them ; and the lasl greal scene confirmed the union. 
They were useful, honored, prosperous, and lovely in their lives, 
and in their deaths, they were not divided. 

Ilappii t at the last, they were permitted almost to choose the 
hour of their departure; to die on that day, on which those who 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 125 

loved them best could have wished they might die. It is related 
as a singular felicity of the great philosopher Plato, that he died, 
at a good old age, at a banquet, surrounded with flowers and per- 
fumes, amidst festal songs, on his birth-day. Our Adams and Jef- 
ferson died on the birth-day of the nation ; the day which their 
own deed had immortalized, which their own prophetic spirit had 
marked out, as the great festival of the nation ; not amidst the 
festal songs of the banquet, but amidst the triumphal anthems of a 
whole grateful people. At the moment that Jefferson expired, his 
character was the theme of eulogy, in every city and almost every 
village of the land ; and the lingering spirit of his great co-patriot 
fled, while his name was pronounced with grateful recollection, at 
the board of patriotic festivity, throughout a country, that hailed 
him as among the first and boldest of her champions, even in the 
days when friends were few and hearts were faint. 

Our jubilee, like that of old, is turned into sorrow. Among the 
crumbling ruins of Rome, there is a shattered arch, reared by the 
emperor Vespasian, when his son Titus returned from the destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem. On its broken pannels and falling frieze are 
still to be seen, represented as borne aloft in the triumphal proces- 
sion of Titus, the well known spoils of the second temple, the 
sacred vessels of the holy place, the candlestick with seven branch- 
es, and, in front of all, the silver trumpets of the jubilee, in the 
hands of captive priests, proclaiming not now the liberty, but the 
humiliation and the sorrows of Judah. From this mournful spec- 
tacle, it is said, the pious and heart-stricken Hebrew, even to the 
present day, turns aside in sorrow. lie will not enter Koine, 
through the gate of the arch of Titus, but winds his way through 
the by-paths of the Palatine, and over the broken columns of the 
palace of the Caesars, that he may not behold the sad image of the 
trumpets of the jubilee, borne aloft in the captive train. 

The jubilee of America is turned into mourning. Its joy is 
mingled with sadness ; its silver trumpet breathes a mingled strain. 
Henceforward and forever, while America exists among the nations 
of the earth, the first emotion on the fourth of July shall be of joy 
and triumph in the great event which immortalizes the day, — the 
second shall be one of chastised and lender recollection of the ven- 
erable men, who departed on the morning of the jubilee. This 



126 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

mingled emotion of triumph and sadness has sealed the moral 
beauty and sublimity of our great anniversary. In the simple 
commemoration of a victorious political achievement, there seems 
not enough to occupy all our purest and best feelings. The fourth 
of July was before a day of unshaded triumph, exultation, and 
national pride ; but the angel of death has mingled in the all-glori- 
ous pageant, to teach us we are men. Had our venerated fathers 
left us on any other day, the day of the united departure of two 
such men would henceforward have been remembered but as a day 
of mourning. Jiut now. while their decease has gently chastened 
the exultations of the triumphant festival ; the banner of indepen- 
dence will wave cheerfully over the spot where they repose. The 
whole nation feels, as with one heart, that since it must sooner or 
later have been bereaved of its revered fathers, it could not have 
wished that any other had been the day of their decease. Our 
anniversary festival was before triumphant ; it is now triumphant 
and sacred. It before called out the young and ardent, to join in 
the public rejoicings ; it now also speaks, in a touching voice, to 
the retired, to the grey-headed, to the mild and peaceful spirits, to 
the whole family of sober freemen. With some appeal of joy, of 
admiration, of tenderness, it henceforth addresses every American 
heart. It is henceforward, what the dying Adams pronounced it, 
a great and a good day. It is full of greatness, and full of goodness. 
It is absolute and complete. The death of the men, who declared 
our independence, — their death on the day of the jubilee, was all that 
was wanting to the fourth of July. To die on that day, and to 
die together, was all that was wanting to Jefferson and Adams. 

Think not fellow -citizens, that, in the mere formal discharge of 
my duty this daw 1 would overrate the melancholy interest of the 
great occasion. Heaven knows, 1 do any thing but intentionally 
overrate it. I labor only for words, to do justice to your feel- 
ings and to mine. I can say nothing, which does not sound as 
cold, as tame, and as inadequate to myself as to you. The theme 
is tOO great and too surprising, the men are too greal and good to 
lie spoken of. in this cursor) manner. There is too much in the 

contemplation of their united characters, their services, the day 
and coincidence of their death, to be properly described, or to he 
fully felt at once. I dare not come here and dismiss, in a few 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 127 

summary paragraphs, the characters of men, who have filled such 
a space in the history of their age. It would be a disrespectful 
familiarity with men of their lofty spirits, their rich endowments, 
their deep counsels, and wise measures, their long and honorable 
lives, to endeavor thus to weigh and estimate them. I leave that 
arduous task, to the genius of kindred elevation, by whom to-mor- 
row it will be discharged.* I feel the mournful contrast in the 
fortunes of the first and best of men, that after a life in the high- 
est walks of usefulness ; after conferring benefits, not merely on a 
neighborhood, a city, or even a state, but on a whole continent, and 
a posterity of kindred men ; after having stood in the first estima- 
tion for talents, services, and influence, among millions of fellow 
citizens, a day should come, which closes all up ; pronounces a 
brief blessing on their memory ; gives an hour to the actions of a 
crowded life ; describes in a sentence what it took years to bring 
to pass, and what is destined for years and ages to continue and 
operate on posterity ; forces into a few words the riches of busy 
days of action and weary nights of meditation ; passes forgetfully 
over many traits of character, many counsels and measures, which 
it cost perhaps years of discipline and effort to mature ; utters a 
funeral prayer ; chants a mournful anthem ; and then dismisses all 
into the dark chambers of death and forgetfulness. 

But no, fellow citizens, we dismiss them not to the chambers of 
forgetfulness and death. What we admired, and prized, and ven- 
erated in them, can never die, nor dying, be forgotten. I had 
almost said that they are now beginning to live ; to live that life 
of unimpaired influence, of unclouded fame, of unmingled happiness, 
for which their talents and services were destined. They were of 
the select few, the least portion of whose life dwells in their physi- 
cal existence ; whose hearts have watched, while their senses have 
slept ; whose souls have grown up into a higher being ; whose 
pleasure is to be useful ; whose wealth is an unblemished reputa- 
tion ; who respire the breath of honorable fame ; who have delib- 
erately and consciously put what is called life to hazard, that they 
may live in the hearts of those who come after. Such men do 



* A Eulogy was delivered on Adams and Jefferson, on the following day, in 
Faneuil Hall, by Daniel Webster. 



\-2- EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

not, cannot die. To be cold, and motionless, and breathless ; to 
feel not and speak not ; this is not the end of existence to the men 
who have breathed their spirits into the institutions of their coun- 
try, who have stamped their characters on the pillars of the age, 
who have poured their hearts' blood into the channels of the public 
prosperity. Tell me, ye, who tread the sods of yon sacred height, 
is Warren dead? Can you not still see him, not pale and pros- 
trate, the blood of his gallant heart pouring out of his ghastly 
wound, but moving resplendent over the field of honor, with the 
rose of Heaven upon his cheek, and the fire of liberty in his eye? 
Tell me, ye, who make your pious pilgrimage to the shades of 
Vernon, is Washington indeed shut up in that cold and narrow 
house ? That which made these men, and men like these, cannot 
die. The hand that traced the charter of independence is indeed 
motionless, the eloquent lips that sustained it, are hushed ; but the 
lofty spirits that conceived, resolved, matured, maintained it, and 
which alone to such men, 'make it life to live,' these cannot ex- 
pire ;— 

These Bball resisl tin' empire of decay, 
When time is o'er, and worlds have passed away; 
Cold in the dust, the perished heart may lie, 
But that, which wanned it once, can never die. 

This is their life, and this their eulogy. In these our feeble 
services of commemoration, we set forth not their worth, but our 
own gratitude. The eulogy of those, who declared our indepen- 
dence, is written in the whole historj of independent America. I 
do not mean, that they alone wrought out our liberties ; nor should 
we bring a grateful offering to their tombs, in sacrificing at them 
the merits of their contemporaries. But no one surely, who con- 
siders the history of the times, the state of opinions, the power of 
England, the weakness of the colonies, and the obstacles that 
actually stood in the way of success, can doubt that, if John Ad- 
am- and Thomas Jefferson had thrown their talents and influence 
into the scale of submission, the effect would have been felt to the 
cost of America, lor ages. No, it i- not too much to say. that 
ages on ages may pa--, and the growing millions of America may 
overflow the uttermost regions of this continent, but never can 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 129 

there be an American citizen, who will not bear in his condition, 
in his pursuits, in his welfare, some trace of what was counselled, 
and said, and done by these great men. This is their undying 
praise ; a praise, which knows no limits but those of America, and 
which is uttered, not merely in these our eulogies, but in the thou- 
sand inarticulate voices of art and nature. It sounds from the 
woodman's axe in the distant forests of the west ; for what was it 
that unbarred to him the portals of the mountains ? The busy 
water-wheel echoes back the strain ; for what was it that released 
the industry of the country from the fetters of colonial restriction ? 
Their praise is borne on the swelling canvass of America to dis- 
tant oceans, where the rumor of acts of trade never came ; for 
what was it that sent our canvass there? and it glistens at home, 
in the eyes of the happy population of a prosperous and grateful 
country. Yes, the people, the people rise up and call them bless- 
ed. They invoke eternal blessings on the men, who could be 
good as well as great, whose ambition was their country's welfare, 
who did not ask to be rewarded by oppressing themselves the 
country they redeemed from oppression. 

The day we have separated to the remembrance of our departed 
fathers is indeed but a fleeting moment ; its swift watches will soon 
run out, and the pausing business of life start again into motion. 
But every day of our country's succeeding duration, every age as 
it comes forward with its crowded generations, to enjoy the blessings 
of our institutions, will take up the surprising theme. Though its 
affecting novelty will pass away for us, it will strike the hearts of 
our children ; and the latest posterity, looking back on the period 
of the Revolution as the heroic age of America, will contemplate, 
with mingled wonder and tenderness, this great and closing scene. 

I shall not, fellow citizens, on this occasion, attempt a detailed 
narrative of the lives of these distinguished men. To relate their 
history at length, would be to record the history of the country, 
from their first entrance on public life to their final retirement. 
Even to dwell minutely on the more conspicuous incidents of their 
career, would cause me to trespass too far on the proper limits of 
the occasion, and to repeat what is well known to most who hear 
me. Let us only enumerate those few leading points in their lives 
and characters, which will best guide us to the reflections we ought 
16 



130 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

to make, while \\c stand at the tombs of these excellent and hon- 
ored men. 

Mr Vdams was horn on the 30th of October, L735, and .Mr Jef- 
ferson on the 13th of April, 1743. One of them rose from the 
undistinguished mass of the community, while the other, born in 
higher circumstances, voluntarily descended into its ranks. Al- 
though happily in this country it cannot be said of any one, that 
he owes much to birth or family, yet it sometimes happens, even 
under the perfect equality which fortunately prevails among us, 
that a certain degree of deference follows in the train of family 
connexions, apart from all personal merit. Mr Adams was the son 
of a New-England yeoman, and in this alone, the frugality and 
moderation of his bringing up are sufficiently related. Mr Jeli 
owed more to birth, lie inherited a good estate from his respect- 
able father; but instead of associating himself with the opulent 
interest in Virginia, — at that lime, in consequence of the mode in 
which their estates were held and transmitted, an exclusive and 
powerful class, and of which he might have become a powerful 
Iead< r. — he threw himself into the rank- of the people. 

It was a propitious coincidence, that of these two eminent 
Statesmen, one was from the north, ami the other from the south: 
as if, in the happy effects of their joint action, to give us the firsl 
lesson of union. The enemies of our indepi mleiice. at home and 
abroad, relied on the difficulty of uniting the colonies in one har- 
monious system. They knew the difference in our local origin ; 
they exaggerated the points of dissinularity in our sectional char- 
acter. They thought the south would feel no sympathy in the 
distresses of the north: that the north would look with jealousy 
on the character and institutions of the south. It was therefore 
most auspicious, in the great dispositions of the Revolution, that 
while the north and the south hail each it- great lathing point, in 
\ nia and Massachusetts, the wise and good men. whose influ- 
ence was most fell in each, moved forward in brotherhood and 
concert. Mr Quincy, in a \ i-it to the southern colonies, had en- 

tered into an extensive correspondence with the friends ol liberty 
in th.it pari of the country. Richard Henr) Lee and his brother 
Arthur maintained a constant intercourse with Samuel Adam-. 
Ur Franklin, though a citizen of Pennsylvania, was a native ol 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 131 

Boston ; and from the first moment of their meeting at Philadel- 
phia, Jefferson and Adams began to cooperate cordially, in that 
great work of independence to which they were both devoted. 
While the theoretical politicians of Europe were speculating on 
our local peculiarities, and the British ministry were building their 
best hopes upon the maxim, divide and conquer, they might well 
have been astonished to see the declaration of independence report- 
ed into Congress, by the joint labor of the son of a Virginia planter 
and of a New-England yeoman. 

The education of Adams and Jefferson was within the precincts 
of home. They received their academical instruction at the sem- 
inaries of their native States, the former at Cambridge, the latter 
at William and Mary. At these institutions, they severally laid 
the foundation for very distinguished attainments as scholars, and 
formed a taste for letters, which was fresh and craving to the last. 
They were both familiar with the ancient languages, and the litera- 
ture they contain. Their range in the various branches of general 
reading was perhaps equally wide, and was uncommonly extensive ; 
and it is, I believe, doing no injustice to any other honored name 
to say, that, in this respect, they stood without an equal in the 
band of revolutionary worthies. 

Their first writings were devoted to the cause of their country. 
Mr Adams, in 1765, published his Essay on the Canon and 
Feudal Law, which two years afterwards was republished in Lon- 
don, and was there pronounced one of the ablest performances 
which had crossed the Atlantic* It expresses the boldest and 

* The copy I possess of this work was printed by Almon, at London, in 1768, 
as a sequel to some other political pieces, with the following title, and preliminary 
note: ' The following dissertation which was written at Boston, in New-England, in 
the year 1765, and then printed therein the Gazette, being very curious, and havin» 
connexion with this publication, it is thought proper to reprint it.' 

' The author of it is said to have been Jeremy Gridley, Esq. Attorney General of 
the Province of Massachusetts Bay, member of the General Court, colonel of the 
first regiment of militia, president of the marine society, and grand master of the 
Free Masons. He died at Boston, Sept. 7, 1767. 

' A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law.'' 

This copy formerly belonged to Dr Andrew Eliot, to whom it was presented by 
Thomas Mollis. Directly above the title is written, apparently in Dr A. Eliot's 
hand- writing, 'The author of this dissertation is John Adams, Esq.' And at the 



132 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

most elevated sentiments, in language mosl vigorous and animating ; 
and might have taught in its tone, what it taught in its doctrine, 
thai Am. lira must be unoppressed, or must become independent 
Among Mr Jefferson's first productions was in like manner, a po- 
litical es ay, entitled ' A Summarj \ lev, of the Rights of British 
America.' It contains, in some parts, a near approach to the ideas 
and language of the declaration of independence ; and its bold 
spirit and polished, but at the same time, powerful execution, are 
known to have had their effect, in causing its author to be designa- 
ted for the high trusts con6ded to him in the continental Congress. 
At a later period of life, Mr Jefferson became the author of the 
Notes on Virginia, a work equally admired in Europe and Ameri- 
ca; and Mr Adams of the Defence of the American Constitutions, 
a performance that would do honor to the political literature of any 
country. I>ut. in enumerating their literary production-, it must 
be remembered, that they were both employed, the greater part of 
their lives, in the active duties of public service; and that the 
fruits of their intellect are not to be sought in the S3 stematic vol- 
ui;i - of learned leisure, hut on the files of office, in the archives of 
state, and in a most extensive public and private correspondence. 

The professional education of these distinguished statesmen had 
been in the law : and was then fore such as peculiarly fitted them 
for the contest, in which they were to act as leaders. The law of 
England, then the law of America, is closely connected with the 
history of the liberty of England. Many of the questions at issue 
between the Parliament of Greal Britain and the Colonies, were 
questions of constitutional, if not of common law. For the discus- 
sion of these question-, the legal profession furnished the best prep- 
aration, [n general, the contest was, happily for the colonies, at 
lii -i forensic : a contest of discussion and of argumentation : affording 

root of ili'' page i- ill'' following note, in the same band-writing, bul marked with 
inverted commas, as a quotation, and signed T. II. 

• Tin' Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law i- one of the very finest produc- 
tions ever 3een from V America.' 

• l'.\ a lettei I'm in Boston in \. I'.. signed SU1 JURIS, inserted in thai valuable 
newspaper, the London Chronicle, July It), it ihuuld seem the writer of it 

yei lives!' T. II. 
This was said nfty-eighl yeai 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 133 

time, arid opportunity, and excitement to diffuse throughout the 
people, and stamp deeply on their minds the great principles, which 
having first been triumphantly sustained in the argument, were 
then to be confirmed in the field. This required the training of the 
patriot lawyer, and this was the office which, in that capacity, was 
eminently discharged by Jefferson and Adams, to the doubtful 
liberties of their country. The cause, in which they were engaged, 
abundantly repaid the service and the hazard. It gave them pre- 
cisely that amplitude of view and elevation of feeling, which the 
technical routine of the profession is too apt to stifle. Their prac- 
tice of the law was not in the narrow litigation of the courts, but 
in the great forum of contending empires. It was not nice legal 
fictions they were there employed to balance, but sober realities of 
indescribable weight. The life and death of their country was the 
all-important issue. Nor did their country afterwards afford them 
leisure for the ordinary practice of their profession. Mr Jefferson 
indeed, in 1776 and 1777, was employed with Wythe and Pendle- 
ton in an entire revision of the code of Virginia ; and Mr Adams 
was offered about the same time the first seat on the bench of the 
Superior Court of his native State. But each was shortly after- 
wards called to a foreign mission, and spent the rest of the active 
years of his life, with scarce an interval, in the political service of 
his country. 

Such was the education and quality of these men, when the 
revolutionary contest came on. In 1774, and on the 17th of June, 
a day destined to be in every way illustrious, Mr Adams was elect- 
ed a member of the Continental Congress, of which body he was 
signalized, from the first, as a distinguished leader. In the month 
of June in the following year, when a commander in chief was to 
be chosen for the American armies, and when that appointment 
seemed in course to belong to the commanding general of the 
brave army from Massachusetts and the neighboring States, which 
had rushed to the field, Mr Adams recommended George Wash- 
ington to that all-important post, and was thus far the means of 
securing the blessing of his guidance to the American armies. In 
August, 1775, Mr Jefferson took his seat in the continental Con- 
gress, preceded by the fame of being one of the most accomplished 
and powerful champions of the cause, though among the youngest 



134 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

members of that body. It was the wish of .Mr Adam-, and prob* 
alil\ of Mr Jefferson, that independence should be declared in 
the fall of 1775 ; but the country seemed not then ripe for the 
measure. 

At length the accepted time arrived. In May, 1776, the colo- 
n; 3, on the proposition of Mr Adams, were united by the General 
Congress, to establish their several State governments. On the 
7th of June, the resolution of independence was moved |>y Kich- 
ard Henry Lee. On the 11th, a committee of five was chosen to 
announce this resolution to the world; and Thomas Jefferson and 
John Adams stood at the head of this committee. From their 
designation by ballot to this most honorable duty, their elevated 
standing in the Congress might alone be inferred. In their amica- 
ble contention and deference each to the other of the great trust 
of composing the all-important document, we witness their patriotic 
disinterestedness, and their mutual respect. This trust devolved 
on Jefferson, and with it rests on him the imperishable renown of 
having penned the declaration of independence of America. To 
have Keen the instrument of expressing, in one brief, decisive act, 
the concentrated will and resolution of a whole family of States; 
of unfolding, in one all-important manifesto, the causes, the motiv« -. 
and the justification of the great movement in human affairs, which 
was then taking place: to have been permitted to give the impress 
and peculiarity of his own mind, to a charter of public right, des- 
tined, or rather let me say already elevated to an importance, in 
the estimation of men. equal to any thing human, ever borne on 
parchment, or expressed in the \isihle signs of thought, this is the 
glorj nl Thomas Jefferson. To have been among the firsl of 
those who foresaw, and foreseeing, broke the way for this great 
consummation ; to have been the mover of numeious decisive acts, 
its undoubted precursors; to have been among man) able and 
generous spirits, that united in this perilous adventure, by acknow- 
ledgment unsurpassed in zeal, and unequalled in power; to have 
been exclusivelj associated with the author of the declaration ; and 
then, in the exercise of an eloquence as prompt as it was over- 
whelming, to have taken the lead in inspiring the Congress to 
adopt and proclaim it, this is the glorj of John ^daras. 

Nor wa it anion,; common and inferior minds, that these men 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 135 

enjoyed their sublime pre-eminence. In the body that elected Mr 
Jefferson to draft the declaration of independence, there sat a patriot 
sage, than whom the English language does not possess a better 
writer, Benjamin Franklin. And Mr Adams was pronounced by 
Mr Jefferson himself the ablest advocate of independence, in a 
Congress, which could boast among its members such men as Pat- 
rick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, and our own Samuel Adams. 
They were great and among great men ; mightiest among the 
mighty ; and enjoyed their lofty standing in a body, of which half 
the members might with honor have presided over the deliberative 
councils of a nation. 

All glorious as their office in this council of sages has proved, 
they beheld the glory only, in distant vision, while the prospect 
before them was shrouded with darkness and lowering with terror. 
' I am not transported with enthusiasm,' is the language of Mr 
Adams, the day after the resolution was adopted, ' I am well aware 
of the toil, the treasure, and the blood it will cost, to maintain this 
declaration, to support and defend these States. Yet through all 
the gloom, I can see a ray of light and glory. I can see that the 
end is worth more than all the means.' Nor was it the rash 
adventure of uneasy spirits, who had every thing to gain and 
nothing to risk by their enterprise. They left all for their country's 
sake. Who does not see that Adams and Jefferson might have 
risen to any station in the British empire ? They might have 
revelled in the royal bounty ; they might have stood within the 
shadow of the throne which they shook to its base. It was in the 
full understanding of their all but desperate choice, that they chose 
for their country. Many were the inducements, which called 
them to another choice. The dread voice of autbority ; the array 
of an empire's power ; the pleadings of friendship ; the yearning 
of their hearts towards the land of their fathers' sepulchres ; the 
land which the great champions of constitutional liberty still made 
venerable ; the ghastly vision of the gibbet, if they failed ; all the 
feelings which grew from these sources were to be stifled and kept 
down, for a clearer treasure was at stake. They were any thing 
but adventurers, any thing but malecontents. They loved peace, 
they loved order, they loved law, they loved a manly obedience to 
constitutional authority ; but they chiefly loved freedom and their 



136 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

countrv : and they took up the ark of her liberties with pure hands, 
and bore it through in triumph, for their strength was in Heaven. 

And how shall I attempt to follow them through the succession 
of greal events, which a rare and kind Providence crowded into their 
lives; how shall [attempt to count all the links of that bright 
chain, which hinds the perilous hour of their first efforts for free- 
dom, with the rich enjoyment of its consummation? How shall 1 
attempt to enumerate the posts they filled and the trusts they dis- 
charged al home and abroad, hoth to the councils of their native 
States, and of the confederation ; hoth before and after the adoption 
of the federal constitution : the codes of law and systems of gov- 
ernment they aided in organizing ; the foreign embassies they 
sustained : the alliances with powerful States they contracted, when 
America was weak ; the loans and subsidies, they procured from 
foreign powers, when America was poor; the treaties of peace 
and commerce, which they negotiated ; their participation in the 
federal government on its organization, .Mr Adams as the first Vice- 
President, Mr Jefferson as the fust Secretary of State; their 
mutual possession of the confidence of the only man. to whom his 
country accorded a higher place ; and their successive administra- 
tions in chief of the interests of this great republic? These all 
are laid up in the annals of the country ; her archive- are filled 
with the productions of their fertile and cultivated minds; the 
of her history are bright with the lustre of their achievements ; 
and the welfare and happiness of America pronounce, in one 
general eulogy, the just encomium of their services. 

Nor need we fear, fellow-citizens, to speak of their political dis- 
sensions. If they w ho opposed each other, and arrayed the nation, 
in their arduous contention, were aide in the hosom of private life 
to forget their former struggles, we surely ma} contemplate them. 

ev< n in this relation, with calmness. Of the counsels adopted and 
the measures pursued in the storm of political warfare. I presume 
not to speak. 1 knew thesi greal nun. not as opponents, bul as 
friends to each other: not to the keen prosecution of a political 
controversy, but to the cultivation of a friendly correspondence. 
A> tip \ respected and honored each other. I respeel and honor 
hoth. Time too has removed the foundation of their dissensions. 
The principle-; on which they contended are settled, some in favor 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 137 

of one and some in favor of the other : the great foreign interests, 
that lent ardor to the struggle have happily lost their hold on the 
American people ; and the politics of the country now turn on 
questions not agitated in their days. Meantime, I know not 
whether, if we had it in our power to choose between the recol- 
lection of these revered men, as they were, and what they would 
have been without their great struggle, we could wish them to 
have been other than they were, even in this respect. Twenty 
years of friendship succeeding ten of rivalry, appear to me a more 
amiable and certainly a more instructive spectacle, even than a 
life of unbroken concert. As a friend to both their respected 
memories, I would not willingly spare the attestation, which they 
were pleased to render to each other's characters. We are taught, 
in the valedictory lessons of our Washington that ' the spirit of 
of party is the worst enemy of a popular government ;' shall we 
not rejoice that we are taught, in the lives of our Adams and our 
Jefferson, that the most embittered contentions, which as yet have 
divided us, furnish no ground for lasting disunion. In their lives 
did I say? Oh, not in their lives alone, but in that mysterious and 
lovely union which has called them together to the grave. 

The declining period of their lives presents their own charac- 
ters, in the most delightful aspect, and furnishes the happiest 
illustration of the perfection of our political system. We behold 
a new spectacle of moral sublimity ; the peaceful old age of the 
retired chiefs of the republic ; an evening of learned, useful, and 
honored leisure following upon a youth of hazard, a manhood of 
service, a whole life of alternate trial and success. We behold 
them indeed active and untiring, even to the last. At the ad- 
vanced age of eighty-five years, our venerable fellow citizen and 
neighbor is still competent to take a part in the convention for 
revising the state constitution, to whose original formation, forty 
years before, he so essentially contributed ; and Mr Jefferson, at 
the same protracted term of life, was able to project and carry on 
to their completion, the extensive establishments of the University 
of Virginia. 

But it is the great and closing scene, which appears, by higher 
allotment, to crown their long and exalted career, with a consum- 
mation almost miraculous. Having done so much and so happily 
17 



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i. VI. 111. vi oa ik.. \.'/.i 

among the la I thai dwell on hi quivering linn and when, 
to ard the houi <>\ noon, he fi 11 hi/) n'*U<: hear! owini cold 
wiiliin him, the last emotion which warmed i I was, thai 'Jefli 
still survives.' Bui he lurvivi not; he ii gom They are gone 
togethei ' 

Friends, fellow-citizen free prosperous, happy Ai •■■ 
The men who <li'l so much to make vou o The 

men who gave nothing to pleasure in youth, nothing to re posi 
ag< but all to thai country, whose beloved name filled theii I 
as it docs oui , .-. ith joy can now do no moi e (or u noi . < fbi 
them. Bui their memory remain we will cheri Ii it; theii b 
1 cample remains, we .'.ill strive to imitate it; the fruil of their 
■ i i counsels and noble acts remain , we will gratefully enjoy it. 

Tiny have gone to the companion ol theii can '/I then dan- 
gej and their toils. Ii is well with them. The trea ur< ol 
America are now in heaven. How lone the hsl ol oui good, and 
••■ i e and brave, a embled there! how l' .. remain with us! 
There is oui Washington; and those, who followed him in their 
country's confidence, are now mel togethei vith him, and all that 
illu ii iou i companv . 

The faithful marble may preserve theii image; the engraven 
bra may proclaim theii worth; bul the humbh I sod ol Inde- 
pendent America, v iili nothing bu) the dew-drops of the morning to 
gild it, is a proudei mau oleum than kings 01 conquerors can boast. 
The country i . theii monument. Ii independence i theii epitaph. 
Bui noi to theii countn i theii prai •■ limited. The vhole earth 
i the monumenl <>l illu trious men. Wherevej an agonizing peo- 
ple ball perish, in a generou convul ion, for want ol a valiant 
arm and a fearle heart, they will cry, in the la i accent ol d( - 
paii Oh, for a Wa bington, an Adams, a JerTei on. Wherevei a 
reg< nerated nation, tarting up in ii might, shall bursl the linl ol 
steel thai enchain it, the praise ol oui venerated Fathers shall be 
the prelude ol their triumphal onj 

The contemporary and successive generations ol men will dis- 
appear. In the long lapse ol age the Tribes of America, like 
those ( 'l Greece, and Rome, may pa . away. The fabric of 
American Freedom, like all things human, bo> i vei firm and fair, 
may crumble into du it. But die cau le in which these our Fathei i 



140 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

shone is immortal. They did that, to which no age, no people of 
reasoning men, can be indifferent. Their eulogy will be uttered 
in other languages, when those we speak, like us who speak them, 
shall be all forgotten. And when the great account of humanity 
shall be closed, in the bright list of those who have best adorned 
and served it, shall be found the names of our Adams and our 
Jefferson ! 



ORATION 



delivered before the citizens of charlestown, on the 
4th of july, 1828. 



Fellow Citizens, 

The event, which we commemorate, is all-important, not 
merely in our own annals, but in those of the world. The senten- 
tious English poet has declared, that ' the proper study of mankind 
is man ;' and of all inquiries, which have for their object the tempo- 
ral concerns of our nature, the history of our fellow beings is unques- 
tionably among the most interesting. But not all the chapters of 
human history are alike important. The annals of our race have 
been filled up with incidents, which concern not, or at least ought 
not to concern the great company of mankind. History, as it has 
often been written, is the genealogy of princes, — the field-book of 
conquerors, — and the fortunes of our fellow men have been treated, 
only so far as they have been affected by the influence of the great 
masters and destroyers of our race. Such history is, I will not say 
a worthless study, for it is necessary for us to know the dark side, 
as well as the bright side of our condition. But it is a melancholy 
and heartless study, which fills the bosom of the philanthropist and 
the friend of liberty with sorrow. 

But the History of Liberty, — the history of men struggling to 
be free, — the history of men who have acquired, and are exercis- 
ing their freedom, — the history of those great movements in 
the world,] by which liberty has been established, diffused, and 
perpetuated, form a subject, which we cannot contemplate too 
closely, — to which we cannot cling too fondly. This is the real 



142 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

history of man, — of the human family. — of rational, immortal 
beings. 

This theme is one; — the free of all climes and cations, are 
themselves a people. Their annals are the history of freedom. 
Those who fell victims to their principles, in the civil convulsions 
of the short-lived republics of Greece, or who sunk beneath the 
power of her invading foes; those who shed their blood for liberty 
amidst the ruins of the Roman republic ; the victims of Austrian 
tyranny in Switzerland, and of Spanish tyranny in Holland; the 
solitary champions or the united bands of high-minded and patri- 
otic men, who have, in any region or age, struggled and suffered 
in this great cause, belong to that people of the free, whose 
fortunes and progress are the most noble theme which man can 
contemplate. 

The theme belongs to us. We inhabit a country, which has 
been signalized in the great history of freedom. We live under 
institutions, more favorable to its diffusion, than any which the 
world has elsewhere known. A succession of incidents, of rare 
curiosity, and almost mysterious connexion, has marked out Amer- 
ica as the great theatre of political reform. Many circumstances 
stand recorded in our annals, connected with the assertion of human 
rights, which, were we not familiar with them, would (ill even our 
ow n minds w ith amazement. 

The theme belongs to the day. We celebrate the return of the 
day on which our separate national existence was declared : the 
day when the momentous experiment was commenced, by which 
the world, and posterity, and we ourselves were to he taught, how 
far a nation of men can be trusted with self-government, — how far 
life, and liberty, and property are safe, and the progress of social 
improvement is secure, under the influence of laws made by those 
who are to obey the laws: the day, when, for the first time in the 
world, a numerous people was ushered into the family ot nations, 
organized on the principle of the political equality of all the cit- 
izens. 

Let us then, fellow citizen-, devote the time which has been set 
apart for this portion of the duties of the day. to a ha-t\ n \nw of 
the history of Liberty, especially to B contemplation of some ol 
those astonishing incidents, which preceded, accompanied, or have 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 143 

followed the settlement of America, and the establishment of our 
political institutions ; and which plainly indicate a general tendency 
and cooperation of things, toward the erection, in this country, of 
the great monitorial school of human freedom. 

We hear much, in our early days, of the liberty of Greecejind 
Rome ; — a great and complicated subject, which this is not the 
time nor the place to attempt to disentangle. True it is, that we 
find, in the annals of both these nations, bright examples of public 
virtue ; — the record of faithful friends of their fellow men ; — of 
strenuous foes of oppression at home or abroad ; — and admirable 
precedents of popular strength. But we nowhere find in them the 
account of a populous and extensive region, blessed with institu- 
tions securing the enjoyment and transmission of regulated liberty. 
In freedom, as in most other things, the ancient nations, while they 
made surprisingly near approaches to the truth, yet for want of 
some one great and essential principle or instrument, came utterly 
short of it in practice. They had profound and elegant scholars, 
but for want of the art of printing, they could not send information 
out among the people, where alone it is of great use, in reference 
to human happiness. Some of them ventured boldly to sea, and 
possessed an aptitude for commerce ; yet for want of the mariner's 
compass, they could not navigate distant oceans, but crept for ages 
along the shores of the Mediterranean. In respect to freedom, 
they established popular institutions in single cities ; but for want of 
the representative principle, they could not extend these institutions 
over a large and populous country. But as a large and populous 
country, generally speaking, can alone possess strength enough for 
self-defence, this want was fatal. The freest of their cities, accord- 
ingly fell a prey, sooner or later, to the invading power, either of 
a foreign tyrant or of a domestic traitor. 

In this way, liberty made no firm progress in the ancient states. 
It was a speculation of the philosopher, and an experiment of ihe 
patriot ; but not a natural state of society. The patriots of Greece 
and Rome had indeed succeeded in enlightening the public mind, 
on one of the cardinal points of freedom, the necessity of an elected 
executive. The name and the office of a king were long esteemed 
not only something to be rejected, but something rude and uncivil- 
ized, belonging to savage nations, ignorant of the rights of man, as 



Ill v\ BITOT'S 01 in, '\ 

: in cultivated states. The w which finally 

• in Mens •. made, b\ ilu* Greeks, 

w ith oppressor ami despot, as it Ins continued 

nn hen the first Caesar made his encroachments on the lib- 

>\ . . i!u> patriots even of that age, viul U\i>i that the) 



v 



.v. ltv.it vwnikl ki\o l<iwki\l 
. u-ui.it vU-mI. to kw}> bw II Ro 

\ \ \ 

§ . tins horror of the ver) name of kin 

the bosom of ilu* Romans, that under their worst tyrants, and in 
lonns of the republic were p Chere 

■ name, under N ( office of monarch. 

r individual \n ho filled the ( \ 

tns, after th< the line, The word tmfn 

implied no more than general. I ' ,! consul wad tribune 

e kept up; although, it' the choice did not (all, as it frequent)) 
conferred on h Beer, and 

r continued to m 

ihe empire began and 
pure mi!' \ y a s ort of pel 

nent usurpat and names of the ancient republic* 

l" spirit indeed of liberty had ion animate th 

•ul \\ hen I \ and 

N l >pe burst into ; v i Empire, they swept away the 

poor remnart il upon their ruins, the 

system ol teudal monarchy, from which all the modem k are 

I ,-. in the b) the p 

rep which s 

B ) - >i\il 

wars . ;tnl\ more disastrous l 

V ... .[| 

l i] \ 

. ds of public pr 

: liberal 

\ r 



ivi.lil.l I ■•••. OHA'I IONS. 



m:> 



ill ,m . n ii. The capture ol Constantinople, by the Turw , drove 
i Ik learned Christian "I thai city into Italy, and letters revived. 
A general agitation ol public sentiment, in variou pari ol Europe, 
ended in iho religious reforrnatjoni A spiril ol adventure had 
.1 ■ al ened in the maritime nations, and proji i 1 i ol ri mot* di • qv< i / 
were started j and the signs ol th< timi eemed to augur a greal 
politii al regeneration. But, as il to blasl ' I » 1 1 hope in il bud , an 
il to counterbalance at once th< operation ol these springs ol im- 
provement; as il to secure tho permanence of thi arbitrary institu 
i Mm which existed in every country in thai pari "I the globe, al the 
iii'iiiH ni when ii was mosl threatened; the lasl blow al the same 
time wos given i" iho remaining powei "I the Greal Barons, the 
solo check on the despotism "I the monan Ii winch the feudal v 
hni provided; and ;> new institution wa firmly established in 
Luropo, prompt, efficient, and terrible in its operation, bi yond ;my 
thing which the modern world hod icon, I mean the astern of 
standing armies in othei word military force, organized and 
paid i" upporl the king on his throne, and retain the people in 
their subjei tioni 

Prom this moment, the fate <»l freedom in Europe was sealed. 
Something mighl be hoped, from tho amelioration <»l mannei in 
softening flown the more barbarous parts ol political despoti m; 
Inii nothing was to be expected, in the form ol liberal in litutiom 
founded on principle. 

'I'lif ancienl and the modem forms 01 political servitude wore 
thus combined. The Roman emperors, as I have hinted, main 
tained themselves imply liy military force, in nominal accordance 
with tho forms of the republic. Theii powei (to speak in modern 
terms,) was no pari ol the constitution, even in their own times. 
The feudal sovereigns possessed ;i constitutional precedence in the 
state, which, after the diffusion oi ( Ihri itianity, they claimed by the 
gra< e ol God j bui their power, m poinl ol fact, was 1 ircumsi ribed 
by thai ol theii brother barons. With the firm establishment ol 
standing armies, was consummated ;i system of avowed de poti m, 
tran icending -ill forms 01 the popular will, existing l»y divine right, 
unbalanced by any effectual check in the state, and upheld l>y mil- 
itary powei'. Ii need 1 bul q glance al the state of Europe, in the 
beginning ol the sixteenth century, to see, that, notwithstanding thi 
18 



146 I.VI.KKTT'S ORATION-. 

revival and diffusion of letters, the progress of the reformation, and 
the improvement of manners, the tone of the people, in the most 
enlightened countries, was more abject than it had been since the 
days of the Caesars. England was certainly not the least free of 
all the countries in Europe; hut who can patiently listen to the 
language with which Henry the \ III chides, and Elizabeth scolds 
the lords and commons of the Parliament of Great Britain. 

All hope of liberty then seemed lost ; in Europe all hope was 
lost. A. disastrous turn bad been given to. the geperal movement 

of things ; and in the disclosure of the fatal secret of Standing 

armies, the future political servitude of man was apparently de- 
cided. 

But a change is destined to come over the face of things, as 
romantic in its origin, as it is wonderful in its progress. All is not 
lost : on the contrary, all is saved, at the moment, when all seemed 
involved in ruin. Let me just allude to the incidents, connected 
with this change, as they have lately been described, by an accom- 
plished countryman, now beyond the sea.* 

About half a league from the little sea-port of Palos, in the 

province of Andalusia, in Spain, stands a convent dedicated to 

St .Mary. Sometime in the year I l-(>, a poor wayfaring stranger, 
accompanied by a small boy, makes his appearance, on foot, at the 
gate of tin- convent, and begs of the porter a little bread and wa- 
ter for his child. This friendless stranger is Cou mbi s. Brought 
up in the hardy pursuit of a mariner, with no other relaxation from 
it- toils but that of an occasional service in the fleets of his native 
country, with the burden of fifty years upon his frame, the unpro- 
tected foreigner makes his suit to the sovereigns of Portugal and 
Spain. He tell- them that the broad Hat earth on which we tread, 
is round; — he proposes, with what seem- a sacrilegious hand, to 
lift the veil which had bung, from the creadon of the world, over 
the floods of the ocean: — he promises, by a western course, to 
reach the eastern shores of Asia, — the region of -old. and diamond-. 
and spices; to extend the sovereignty of Christian lungs over 

realm- and nation- hitherto unapproaehed and unknown: — and 
ultimately to perform a new crusade to the Holy Land, and ran- 

* [rvinr'a Life of ( 'olombus. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 147 

som the sepulchre of our Saviour, with the new found gold of the 
East. 

Who shall believe the chimerical pretension ? The learned men 
examine it, and pronounce it futile. The royal pilots have ascer- 
tained by their own experience, that it is groundless. The priest- 
hood have considered it, and have pronounced that sentence so 
terrific where the inquisition reigns, that it is a wicked heresy ; — 
the common sense, and popular feeling of men, have been roused 
first into disdainful and then into indignant exercise, toward a pro- 
ject, which, by a strange new chimera, represented one half of 
mankind walking with their feet toward the other half. 

Such is the reception which his proposal meets. For a long 
time the great cause of humanity, depending on the discovery of 
this fair continent, is involved in the fortitude, perseverance, and 
spirit of the solitary stranger, already past the time of life, when 
the pulse of adventure beats full and high. If he sink beneath the 
indifference of the great, the sneers of the wise, the enmity of the 
mass, and the persecution of a host of adversaries, high and low, 
and give up the fruitless and thankless pursuit of his noble vision, 
what a hope for mankind is blasted ! But he does not sink. He 
shakes off his paltry enemies, as the lion shakes the dew-drops 
from his mane. That consciousness of motive and of strength, which 
always supports the man who is worthy to be supported, sustains 
him in his hour of trial ; and at length, after years of expectation, 
importunity, and hope deferred, he launches forth upon the unknown 
deep, to discover a new world, under the patronage of Ferdinand 
and Isabella. 

The patronage of Ferdinand and Isabella ! — Let us dwell for a 
moment on the auspices under which our country was brought to 
light. The patronage of Ferdinand and Isabella ! Yes, doubt- 
less, they have fitted out a convoy, worthy the noble temper of the 
man, and the gallantry of his project. Convinced at length, that 
it is no day-dream of a heated visionary, the fortunate sovereigns 
of Castile and Arragon, returning from their triumph over the last 
of the Moors, and putting a victorious close to a war of seven cen- 
turies' duration, have no doubt prepared an expedition of well- 
appointed magnificence, to go out upon this splendid search for 
other worlds. They have made ready, no doubt, their proudest 



148 Everett's orations. 

galleon to waft the hemic adventurer upon liis path of glory, with a 
whole armada of kindred spirits, to share his toils and honors. 

Alas from his ancient resort of Palos, which he first approached 
as a mendicant, — in three frail barks, of which two were without 
decks. — the threat discoverer of America sails forth on the first 
voyage across the unexplored waters. Such is the patronage of 
kings. A few years pass by ; he discovers a new hemisphere; the 
wildesl of his visions fade into insignificance, hefore the reality of 
their fulfilment ; he finds a new world for Castile and Leon, and 
comes hack to Spain, loaded with iron fetters. Republics, it is 
said, are ungrateful ; — such are the rewards ofmonarchs! 

With this humble instrumentality, did it please Providence to 
prepare the theatre for those events, by which a new dispensation 
of liberty was to be communicated to man. But much is yet to 
transpire, before even the commencement can be made, in the 
establishment of those institutions, by which this great advance in 
human happiness was to be effected. The discovery of America 
had taken place under the auspices of the government most dis- 
posed for maritime adventure, and besl enabled to extend a helping 
arm. such as it was, to the enterprise of the great discoverer. But 
it was not from the' same quarter, that the elements of liberty could 
be derived, to he introduced, expanded, and reared in the new 
world. Causes, upon which 1 need not dwell, made it impossible, 
that the great political reform should go forth Gram Spain. For 
this object, a new train of incidents was preparing in another 
quarter. 

The only real advances which modern Europe had made in free- 
dom, had been made in England. The cause of liberty in that 
country was persecuted, was subdued; hut not annihilated, nor 
trampled out of being. From the choicest of its suffering cham-i 

p'lOnS, were collected the lirave hand of emigrants, who first went 

out on the second, the more precious voyage of discovery, — the dis- 
cover) of a I, mil where liberty, and its consequent bl< ssings might 
■ tblished. 
A late English writer' has permitted himself to say, that the 
original establishment of the I nited States, and that of the colony 

• London Qmuui I j Review, for January, 1828 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 149 

of Botany Bay, were pretty nearly modelled on the same plan. 
The meaning of this slanderous insinuation, is, that the United 
States were settled by deported convicts, in like manner as New 
South Wales has been settled by felons, whose punishment by 
death has been commuted into transportation. It is doubtless true, 
that, at one period, the English government was in the habit of 
condemning to hard labor as servants, in the colonies, a portion of 
those, who had received the sentence of the law. If this practice 
makes it proper to compare America with Botany Bay, the same 
comparison might be made of England herself, before the practice 
of transportation began, and even now ; inasmuch as a large por- 
tion of her convicts are held to labor within her own bosom. In 
one sense, indeed, we might doubt whether the allegation were 
more of a reproach or a compliment. During the time that the 
colonization of America was going on the most rapidly, the best 
citizens of England, — if it be any part of good citizenship to resist 
oppression, — were immured in her prisons of state, or lying at the 
mercy of the law.* 

Such were the convicts by which America was settled : — men 
convicted of fearing God, more than they feared man ; of sacri- 
ficing property, ease, and all the comforts of life, to a sense of duty, 
and the dictates of conscience ; — men, convicted of pure lives, 
brave hearts, and simple manners. The enterprise was led by 
Raleigh, the chivalrous convict, who unfortunately believed that 
his royal master had the heart of a man, and would not let a sen- 
tence of death, which had slumbered for sixteen years, revive and 
take effect, after so long an interval of employment and favor. But 
nullum tempus occurrit regi. The felons who followed next, were 
the heroic and long-suffering church of Robinson, at Leyden, — 
Carver, Brewster, Bradford, and their pious associates, con- 
victed of worshipping God according to the dictates of their con- 
sciences, and of giving up all, — country, property, and the tombs 
of their fathers, — that they might do it, unmolested. Not content 
with having driven the Puritans from her soil, England next enact- 
ed, or put in force, the oppressive laws, which colonized Maryland 

* See Mr Walsh's « United States and Great Britain,' Sec. II. 



150 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

with Catholics, and Pennsylvania with Quakers. Nor was it long 
before the American plantations were recruited by the Germans, 
convicted of inhabiting the Palatinate, when the merciless armies 
of Louis XIV were turned into that devoted region ; and by the 
Huguenots, convicted of holding what they deemed the simple? 
truth of Christianity, when it pleased the mistress of Louis \ I \ 
to be very zealous for the Catholic faith. These were followed, in 
the next century, by the Highlanders, convicted of the enormous 
crime under a monarchical government, of loyalty to their hered- 
itary prince, on the plains of Culloden ; and the Irish, convicted 
of supporting the rights of their country, against what they deemed 
an oppressive external power. Such are the convicts by whom 
America w as settled. 

In this way, a fair representation of whatsoever was most valua- 
ble in European character, the resolute industry of one nation, the 
inventive skill and curious arts of another, — the courage, conscience, 
principle, self-denial of all, were winnowed out, by the policy of 
of the prevailing governments, little knowing what they did, as a 
precious seed, wherewith to plant the soil of America. By this 
singular coincidence of events, our beloved countrj was constituted 
the greal asylum of suffering virtue and oppressed humanity. It 
could now no longer be said, — as it was of the Roman Empire, — 
that mankind were shut up, as if in a vast prison-house, from 
win nee there \\;i- no escape. The political and ecclesiastical op- 
pres ors of the world, allowed their persecution to find a limit, at 
the shores of the Atlantic. They scarce ever attempted to pursue 
their victims beyond its protecting waters. It i- plain, that, in this 

wa\ alone, the design of Providence could be accomplished, which 
provided for one catholic school of freedom in the western hemis- 
phere, for it mUSl not he a freedom of too sectional and peculiar 
a cast. On the stock of the English civilization, as the general 

basis, were to be engrafted the languages, the arts, and the tastes 

of the other civilized nations. A tie of consanguinity must con- 
ned the members of ever) family of Europe, with some portion of 

our happy land; SO that in all their trials ami disasters, the\ may 

look safely beyond the ocean for a refuge. The victims of power, 
of intolerance, of war. of disaster, in every other part ol the world, 

mut feel, that the\ may find a kindred home, w ithin our Limits. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 151 

Kings, whom the perilous convulsions of the day have shaken from 
their thrones, must find a safe retreat ; and the needy emigrant 
must at least not fail of his bread and water, were it only for the 
sake of the great Discoverer, who was himself obliged to beg them. 
On this corner stone the temple of our freedom was laid from the 
first ; — 

' For here the exile met, from every clime, 

And spoke in friendship, every distant tongue; 

Men, from the blood of warring Europe sprung, 

Were here divided by the running brook.' 

This peculiarity of our population, which some have thought a 
misfortune, is in reality one of the happiest features of the Ameri- 
can character. Without it, there would have been no obvious 
means of introducing a new school of civilization into the world. 
Had we been the unmixed descendants of any one nation of 
Europe, we should have retained a moral and intellectual depend- 
ence on that nation, even after the dissolution of our political 
connexion should have taken place. It was sufficient for the great 
purposes in view, that the earliest settlements were made by men, 
who had fought the battles of liberty in England, and who brought 
with them the rudiments of constitutional freedom, to a region, 
where no deep-rooted prescriptions would prevent their develop- 
ment. Instead of marring the symmetry of our social system, it 
is one of its most attractive and beautiful peculiarities, that, with 
the prominent qualities of the Anglo-Saxon character, inherited 
from the English settlers, we have an admixture of almost every 
thing that is valuable in the character of most of the other states 
of Europe. 

Such was the first preparation for the great political reform, of 
which America was to be the theatre. The colonies of England, 
— of a country, where the sanctity of laws and the constitution is 
professedly recognized, — the North American colonies, — were pro- 
tected, from the first, against the introduction of the unmitigated 
despotism, which prevailed in the Spanish settlements ; — the con- 
tinuance of which, down to the moment of their late revolt, 
prevented the education of those provinces, in the exercise of 
political rights ; and, in that way, has thrown them into the revolu- 
tion, inexperienced and unprepared, — victims, some of them, to a 



152 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

domestic anarchy, scarcely less grievous than the foreign yoke they 
have throw u off. While, however, the settlers of America broughl 
with them the principles and feelings, the political habits and tem- 
per, which defied the encroachments of arbitrary power, and made 
it necessary, when they were to be oppressed, that they should 
be oppressed under the tonus of law ; it was an unavoidable con- 
sequence of the state of things, — a result perhaps oi* the very 
nature of a colonial government, — that they should be thrown into 
a position of controversy with the mother country ; and thus 
become familiar with the whole energetic doctrine and discipline of 
resistance. This formed and hardened the temper of the colonists, 
and trained them up to a spirit, meet for the conflict of separation. 
On the other hand, by what I had almost called an accidental 
circumstance, hut one which ought rather to be considered as a 
leading incident in the great train of events, connected with the 
establishment of constitutional freedom in this country, it came to 
pass, thai nearly all the colonies, — (founded as the\ were on the 
charters, granted to corporate institutions in England, which had 
for their object the pursuit of the branches of industry and trade, 
pertinent to a new plantation,) — adopted a regular representative 
system; b) which, — as in ordinary civil corporations, — the affairs 
of the community are decided by the will and voices of its mem- 
bers, or those authorized by them. It was no device of the parent 

government, which gave us our colonial assemblies. It was no 
refinement of philosophical statesmen, to which we are indebted for 
our republican institutions of government. They grew up, as it 
were by accident, on the simple foundation I have named. 'A 
house of burgesses/ says Hutchinson, ' broke oul in Virginia, in 
L620;' and 'although there was no color for it in the charter of 
Massachusetts, a house of deputies appeared suddenly in 1634.' 

' Lord Say,' observes the same historian. • tempted the principal 

men of Massachusetts, to make themselves and their heirs, nobles 

and absolute governors of a new colony ; hut under this plan, they 
could find no people to follow them." 

At tins i aih period, ami in this simple, unpretending manner, 
was introduced to the world, that greatest discover] in political 
science, or political practice, a representative republican system. 
'The discovery of the system of the representative republic, 1 -ass 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. I 5:{ 

M. do Chateaubriand, 'is one of the greatest political events that 
ever occurred.' But it is not one of the greatest, it is the very 
greatest ; — and, combined with another principle, to which I shall 
presently advert, and which is also the invention of the United 
Stales, il marks an era in human things ; — a discovery in the great 
science of social happiness compared with which every thing, that 
terminates in the temporal interests ol man, sinks into insignifi- 
cance. 

Thus then was the foundation laid, and thus was the preparation 
commenced, of the grand political regeneration. For about a 
century and a half, this preparation was carried on. Without any 
of the temptations, which drew the Spanish adventurers to Mexico 
and Peru, the colonies throve almost beyond example, and in the 
face of neglect, contempt, and persecution. Their numbers, in 
the substantial middle classes of life, increased with singular rapid- 
ity. There were no prerogatives to invite an aristocracy, no vast, 
establishments to attract the indigent. — There was nothing but 
the rewards of labor and the hope of freedom. 

But at length this hope, never adequately satisfied, began to 
turn into doubt and despair. The colonies had become too impor- 
tant to be overlooked ; — their government was a prerogative too 
important to be left in their own hands ; — and the legislation of 
the mother country decidedly assumed a form, which announced 
to the patriots, that the hour at length had come, when the chains 
of the great discoverer were to be avenged ; the sufferings of the 
first settlers to be compensated ; and the long deferred hopes of 
humanity were to be fulfilled. 

You need not, friends and fellow citizens, that I should dwell 
upon the incidents of the last great act in the colonial drama. 
This very place was the scene of some of the earliest, and the 
most memorable of them ; — their recollection is a part, of the in- 
heritance of honor, which you have received from your fathers. 
In the early councils, and first, struggles of the great revolutionary 
enterprise, the citizens of this place were among the most prominent. 
The measures of resistance which were projected by the patriots 
of Charlestown, were opposed but by one individual. An active 
cooperation existed between the political leaders in Boston and 
this place. The beacon light, which was kindled in the towers of 
19 



154 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

Christ Church, in Boston, on the night of the eighteenth, was 
answered from the steeple of the church, in which we are now 
assembled. The intrepid messenger, who was sent forward to 
convey to Hancock and Adams the intelligence of the approach 
of the British troops, was furnished with a horse, for his eventful 
errand, by a respected citizen of this place. At the close of the 
following momentous day, the British forces, — the remnant of its 
disastrous events, — found refuge, under the shades of night, upon 
the heights of Charlestown ; — and there, on the ever memorable 
seventeenth of June, that great and costly sacrifice, in the cause of 
freedom, was awfully consummated with fire and blood. Your hill- 
tops were strewed with the illustrious dead ; your peaceful homes 
were wrapped in devouring flames; the fair fruits of a century and 
a half of civilized culture were reduced to a heap of bloody 
ashes ; — and two thousand men, women, and children, turned 
houseless upon the world. With the exception of the ravages of 
the nineteenth of April, the chalice of woe and desolation was in 
this manner first presented to the lips of the citizens of Charles- 
ton n : and they were called upon, at that early period, to taste of 
its extreme bitterness. Thus devoted, as it were, to the cause, it 
is no wonder that the spirit of the revolution should have taken 
possession of their bosoms, and been transmitted to their children. 
The American, who, in any part of the Union, could forget the 
scenes and the principles of the revolution, would thereby prove 
himself unworthy of the blessings, which he enjoys ; but the citi- 
zen of Charlestown, who could he cold on this momentous theme, 
must hear a voice of reproach from the walls, which were reared 
on the ashes of the seventeenth of June: a piercing cry from the 
very sods of the sacred hill, where our fathers shed their blood. 

The revolution was at length accomplished. The political 
separation of the country from (neat Britain, was effected : and it 
now remained to organize the liberty, which had been leaped on 
bloody fields; — to estahli>h, in the place of the i:o\ eminent, whose 
yoke had been thrown off, a government at home, which should 
fulfil the great design of the revolution, and satisfy the demands of 
the friends of Liberty at large. What manifold perils awaited the 
>tep! The danger was incalculable, that too little or too much 

would be done. Smarting under the Oppressions of a government. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 155 

of which the residence was remote, and the spirit alien to their 
feelings, there was great danger, that the colonies, in the act of 
declaring themselves sovereign and independent states, would push 
to an extreme the prerogative of their separate independence, and 
refuse to admit any authority, beyond the limits of the particular 
commonwealths which they severally constituted. On the other 
hand, achieving their independence beneath the banners of the 
continental army, ascribing, and justly, a large portion of their 
success, to the personal qualities of the beloved Father of his 
Country, there was danger not less imminent, that those, who per- 
ceived the evils of the opposite extreme, would be inclined to 
confer too much strength on one general government ; and would, 
perhaps, even fancy the necessity of investing the hero of the 
revolution, in form, with that sovereign power, which his personal 
ascendency gave him in the hearts of his countrymen. Such and 
so critical was the alternative, which the organization of the new 
government presented, and on the successful issue of which, the 
entire benefit of this great movement in human affairs was to 
depend. 

The first effort to solve the great problem, was made in the 
progress of the revolution, and was without success. The articles 
of confederation verged to the extreme of a union too weak for 
its great purposes ; and the moment the pressure of the war was with- 
drawn, the inadequacy of this first project of a government was felt. 
The United States found themselves overwhelmed with debt, 
without the means of paying it. Rich in the materials of an 
extensive commerce, they found their ports crowded with foreign 
ships, and themselves without the power to raise a revenue. 
Abounding in all the elements of national wealth, they wanted 
resources, to defray the ordinary expenses of government. 

For a moment, and, to the hasty observer, this last effort for the 
establishment of freedom, had failed. No fruit had sprung from 
this lavish expenditure of treasure and blood. We had changed 
the powerful protection of the mother country, into a cold and 
jealous amity, if not into a slumbering hostility. The oppressive 
principles, against which our fathers had struggled, were succeeded 
by more oppressive realities. The burden of the British naviga- 



L56 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

tion ad was removed, bul it was followed by the impossibilitj of 
protecting our shipping, by a navigation law of our own. A state 
of general prosperity, existing before tin- revolution, was succeeded 
by universal exhaustion ; — and a high ami indignant tone of mili- 
tant patriotism, by universal despondency. 

It remained then to <_d\e it- la-t -Teat eii'cet to all that had been 
done, since tin' discover} of America, for the establishment of the 
cause of liberty in the western hemisphere: and by another more 
deliberate eflbrt, to organize a government, by which not only the 
present evils, under which the country was suffering, should he 
remedied, hut the final design of Providence should lie fulfilled. 
Such was the task, which devolved on the council of sages, who 
assembled at Philadelphia, on the second day of .May, 1787, of 
which General Washington was elected President, and over whose 
debates your townsman, Mr Gorham, presided, for two or three 
months, as chairman of the committee of the whole, during the 
discussion of tin- plan of the federal constitution. 

The verj first step to he taken, was one of pain and regret. 
The old confederation was to he given up. What misgivings and 
grief must not this preliminary sacrifice have occasioned to the pa- 
triotic members of the convention! They were attached, and 
with reason, ti> it- simple majesty. It was weak then, hut it had 

-ii Ji to cany the colonic- through the storm- of the 
revolution. Some of the greal men. who led up the forlorn hope 
of their country, in the hour of her dearesl peril, had died in in 
defence. It- banner over us had been not love alone, hut triumph 

and joy. Could not a little ineflic ieiic\ he pardoned to a Union, 
with which France had made an alliance, and England had made 

peace? Could the proposed new government do more or better 
things than this had done': And above all. when the flag of the 
old thirteen w a- struck, which had never been struck in battle, who 

could give assurance, that the heart- of the people could he rallied 
to another ham 

Such were the ii risgn iie_ r - of some of the great men of that 
day. — the Henrys, the Gerrys, and other eminent anti-federalists, 
to whose scruples, it is time that justice should he done. They 
were the sagacious misgivings of wise men. the ju t forebodii 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 157 

brave men ; who were determined nol to defraud posterity of the 
blessings, for which they had all suffered, and for which some of 
them had fought. 

The members of that convention, in going about the great work 
before them, deliberately laid aside the means, by which all pre- 
ceding legislators had aimed to accomplish a like work. In found- 
ing a strong and efficient government, adequate to die raising up of a 
powerful and prosperous people, their first step was, to reject the 
institutions to which other governments traced their strength and 
prosperity. The world had settled down into the sad belief, that 
an hereditary monarch was necessary to give strength to the 
executive. The framers of our constitution provided for an elec- 
tive chief magistrate, chosen every four years. Every other 
country had been betrayed into the admission of a distinction of 
ranks in society, under the absurd impression, that privileged orders 
are necessary to the permanence of the social system. The framers 
of our constitution established every thing on the pure natural 
basis of a uniform equality of the elective franchise, to be exer- 
cised by all the citizens, at fixed and short intervals. In other 
countries, it had been thought necessary to constitute some one 
political centre, toward which all political power should tend, and 
at which, in the last resort, it should be exercised. The framers 
of the constitution devised a scheme of confederate and represent- 
ative sovereign republics, united on a happy distribution of powers, 
which, reserving to the separate states all the political functions 
essential to the public peace and private justice, — bestowed upon 
the general government those and those only, required for the 
service of the whole. 

Thus was completed the great revolutionary movement ; thus 
was perfected that mature organization of a free system, destined to 
stand forever as the exemplar of popular government. Thus was 
discharged the duty of our fathers to themselves, to the country, to 
the world. 

The power of the example thus set up, in the eyes of the na- 
tions, was instantly and widely felt. It was immediately made 
visible to sagacious observers, that a constitutional age had begun. 
It was in the nature of things, that, where the former evil existed 
in its most inveterate form, the reaction should also be the most 



158 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

violent. Hence the dreadful excesses that marked the progress of 
the French revolution, and for a while almost made the name of 
liberty odious. I>nt it is not less in the nature of things, that, 
when the most indisputable and enviable political blessings stand 
illustrated before the world, — not merely in speculation and id 
theory, but in living practice and bright example, — the nations of 
the earth, in proportion as they have eyes to see, and ears to hear, 
and bands to grasp, should insist on imitating the example. Imita- 
ted it they have, and imitate it they will. France clung to the hope 
of constitutional liberty through thirty years of appalling tribulation, 
and now enjoys the freest constitution in Europe. Spain, Portu- 
gal, the two Italian kingdoms, and several of the German states 
have entered on the same path. Their progress has been and must 
be various ; modified by circumstances ; by the interests and pas- 
sions of governments and men, and in some cases seemingly arrested. 
But their march is as sure as fate. If we believe at all in the 
political revival of Europe, there can be no really retrograde move- 
ment in this cause; and that which seems so, in the revolutions of 
government, is like those of the heavenly bodies, a part of their 
eternal orbit. 

There can be no retreat, for the great exemplar must stand, to 
convince the hesitating nations, under eveiy reverse, that the 
reform they strive at. is practicable, is real, is within their reach. 
Institutions may fluctuate ; they maybe pushed onward, as they 
were in France, to a premature simplicity, and fall back to a simil- 
itude of the ancient forms. But there is an element of popular 
strength abroad in the world, stronger than forms and institutions, 
and daily growing in power. A public opinion of a new kind has 
arisen among men, — the opinion of the civilized world. Springing 
into existence on the shores of our own continent, it has grown 
with our growth and strengthened with our strength; till now. this 
moral giant, like thai of the ancient poet, marches along the earth 

and aero-- the ocean, but his front is among the stars. The course 

of the day does not weary, nor the darkness of night arrest him. 
lie grasps the pillars of the temple where oppression sits enthroned, 
not groping and benighted, like the strong man of old, to be crush- 
ed himself beneath the fall ; but trampling, in his strength, on the 

massy ruin-. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 159 

Under the influence, I might almost say the unaided influence, 
of public opinion, formed and nourished by our example, three 
wonderful revolutions have broken out in a generation. That of 
France, not yet consummated, has left that country, (which it found 
in a condition scarcely better than Turkey,) in the possession of 
the blessings of a representative constitutional government. Anoth- 
er revolution has emancipated the American possessions of Spain, 
by an almost unassisted action of moral causes. Nothing but the 
strong sense of the age, that a government like that of Ferdinand, 
ought not to subsist, over regions like those which stretch to the 
south of us, on the continent, could have sufficed to bring about 
their emancipation, against all the obstacles, which the state of so- 
ciety among them, opposes at present, to regulated liberty and safe 
independence. When an eminent British statesman said of the 
emancipation of these States, that ' he had called into existence a 
new world in the West,' he spoke as wisely as the artist, who, 
having tipped the forks of a conductor with silver, should boast that 
he had created the lightning, which it calls down from the clouds. 
But the greatest triumph of public opinion is the revolution of Greece. 
The spontaneous sense of the friends of liberty at home and abroad, 
— without armies, without navies, without concert, and acting only 
through the simple channels of ordinary communication, principally 
the press, — has rallied the governments of Europe to this ancient 
and favored soil of freedom. Pledged to remain at peace, they 
have been driven, by the force of public sentiment, into the war. 
Leagued against the cause of revolution, as such, they have been 
compelled to send their armies and navies, to fight the battles of 
revolt. Dignifying the barbarous oppressor of Christian Greece, 
with the title of ' ancient and faithful ally,' they have been con- 
strained, by the outraged feeling of the civilized world, to burn up, 
in time of peace, the navy of their ally, with all his antiquity and 
all his fidelity ; and to cast the broad shield of the Holy Alliance 
over a young and turbulent republic. 

This bright prospect may be clouded in ; the powers of Europe, 
which have reluctantly taken, may speedily abandon the field. 
Some inglorious composition may yet save the Ottoman empire from 
dissolution, at the sacrifice of the liberty of Greece, and the power 
of Europe. But such are not the indications of things. The pros- 



160 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

pect is fair, that the political regeneration, which commenced in 
the West, is now going backward to resuscitate the once happy 
and long deserted regions of the older world. The hope is not 
now chimerical, that these lovely islands, the flower of the Levant, 
— the shores of that renowned sea, around which all the associa- 
tions of antiquity are concentrated, — are again to be brought hack 
to the sway of civilization and Christianity. Happily the interest 
of the ureal powers of Europe seems to beckon them onward in 
the path of humanity. The half-deserted coasts of Syria and 
Egypt, the fertile but almost desolated Archipelago, the empty 
shores of Africa, the granary of ancient Rome, seem to offer them- 
selves as a ready refuge for the crowded, starving, discontented 
millions of South Western Europe. No natural nor political obstacle 
opposes itself to their occupation. France has long cast a wistful 
eye on Egypt. IVapoleon derived the idea of his expedition, which 
w r as set down to the unchastened ambition of a revolutionary soldier, 
from a memoir found in the cabinet of Louis XVI. England has 
already laid her hand, — an arbitrary, but a civilized and Christian 
hand. — on Malta : and the Ionian Isles and Cyprus, Rhodes, and 
Candia must soon follow; — while it is not beyond the reach of 
hope, that a representative republic may be established in Central 
Greece and the adjacent islands. In this way, and with the exam- 
ple of what has here been done, to extend the reign of civilization 
and freedom, it is not too much to anticipate, that many generations 
will not pass, before the same benignant influence will revisit the 
awakened East, and thus fulfil, in the happiest sense, the vision of 
Columbus, by restoring a civilized population to the primitive seats 
of our holy faith. 

Fellow citizens, the eventful pages in the volume of human for- 
tune are opening upon us. with sublime rapidity of succession. Ii 
is two hundred \c;w< this summer, since a few of thai party, who. 
iii L628, commenced in Salem the first settlement of Massachusetts, 
were senl bj Governor Endicott, to explore the spot w here we stand. 
They found that one pioneer, of the name of W llford, had gone 
before them, in the march of civilization, and had planted himself 
among the numerous and warlike savages in this quarter. From 
them, the native lords of the soil, these firsl hardy adventurers de- 
rived their title to the lands, on which they settled : and by the 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 161 

arts of civilization and peace, opened the way for the main body 
of the colonists of Massachusetts, under Governor Winthrop, who 
two years afterwards, by a coincidence which you will think worth 
naming, arrived in Mystic River, and pitched his patriarchal tent, 
on Ten Hills, upon the seventeenth day of June, 1630. Massa- 
chusetts, at that moment, consisted of six huts at Salem, and one at 
this place. It seems but a span of time, as the mind ranges over 
it. A venerable individual is living, at the seat of the first settle- 
ment, whose life covers one half of the entire period :* but what a 
destiny has been unfolded before our country ! — what events have 
crowded your annals ! — what scenes of thrilling interest and eter- 
nal glory have signalized the very spot where we stand ! 

In that unceasing march of things, which calls forward the suc- 
cessive generations of men to perform their part on the stage of life, 
we at length are summoned to appear. Our fathers have passed 
their hour of visitation ; — how worthily, let the growth and pros- 
perity of our happy land, and the security of our firesides attest. 
Or if this appeal be too weak to move us, let the eloquent silence 
of yonder venerated heights, — let the column, which is there rising 
in simple majesty, recall their venerated forms, as they toiled, in 
the hasty trenches, through the dreary watches of that night of 
expectation, heaving up the sods, where many of them lay in peace 
and in honor, ere the following sun had set. The turn has come 
to us. The trial of adversity was theirs ; the trial of prosperity is 
ours. Let us meet it as men who know their duty, and prize their 
blessings. Our position is the most enviable, the most responsible, 
which men can fill. If this generation does its duty, the cause of 
constitutional freedom is safe. If we fail : if we fail ; — not only 
do we defraud our children of the inheritance which we received 
from our fathers, but we blast the hopes of the friends of liberty 
throughout our continent, throughout Europe, throughout the world, 
to the end of time. 

History is not without her examples of hard-fought fields, where 
the banner of liberty has floated triumphantly on the wildest storm 
of battle. She is without her examples of a people, by whom the 
dear-bought treasure has been wisely employed, and safely handed 

* The late venerable Dr Holyoke of Salem. 

20 



162 KV F.RETT'S ORATIONS. 

dawn. The eyes of the world arc turned for thai example to us. 

It is related l>\ an aiirient historian/ of that ISrutus who slew Cae- 
sar, thai he threw himself on his sword, after the disastrous battle 
of Philippi, with the hitter exclamation, that he had followed vir- 
tue BB a substance, DUl found it a name. It is not loo much to say, 
that there are, at this moment, QOble spirits in the elder world, who 

are anxiousl) watching the practical operation of our institutions, 

t«. learn whether liberty, BS the) have hern told, is a mockery, a 

pretence, and a curse, — or a blessing, for which it becomes them to 

brave the rack, the scaffold, and the scimetar. 

Let us then, as we assemble, on the birth day of the nation, as 

we gather upon the greeu turf, once wet with precious blood, let 

u- deVOte Ourselves tO the sacred cause of CONSTITUTIONAL LIB- 
ERTY. Lei us abjure the interests and passions, which divide the 
greal family of American livuncn. Let tin- rageof party spirit sleep 
to-day. Let us resolve, that our children shall have cause to hless' 
the memory of their fathers, as we ha\e cause to hless the memory 
of ours. 

* Dio Cassius, lilt. XIA'll. in tin. 



ADDRESS 

DELIVERED AT THE ERECTION OF A MONUMENT TO JOHN IIAK- 
VARD, SEPTEMBER 26, 1828. 



We arc assembled, fellow students, and fellow citizens, to wit- 
ness the erection of a simple monument to the memory of John 
Harvard. It is known to you all, with what ready forethought our 
pilgrim fathers provided for the education of those who should 
come after them. Six years only had elapsed, from the time that 
Governor Winthrop, with the charter of the colony, set his foot on 
the banks of Mystic river, when the General Court appropria- 
ted four hundred pounds, out of the scanty resources at its com- 
mand, for the erection of a school or college, at Cambridge, then 
called Newtown.* The views of our worthy fathers, at this time, 
probably did not extend beyond the establishment of a grammar 
school. 

But that Providence, which, on so many other occasions watch- 
ed over the infancy of America, and gave the right direction to its 
first beginnings, was vigilant hen;. In the year 1637, (the year 
following that in which the school at Newtown was established,) 
the Reverend John Harvard arrived in the colony. As he was 
admitted a freeman in November, 16-37, it is supposed that he 
came over in the autumn of that year. 

This ever memorable benefactor of learning and religion in 
America, had been educated at the university of Cambridge in 
England ; was a master of arts of Emanuel College in that uni- 

* See note A , at the end. 



164 KVKRETT'S ORATIONS. 

rersity : and afterwards a minister of the gospel. Hut in. what part 
<il" England, or in what year he was born; where he was settled 
in ilu' ministry; and what were the circumstances of his life, be- 
fore leaving his native land, are matters as yel unknown to us. We 
arc not without hopes, that in answer to inquiries addressed to the 
institution in England, where our founder was educated, we may 
yel derive Mime information on these interesting points. 

The scanty notices which our early histories contain of him, 
lead us to suppose that he broughl to this country the disease, 
which soon proved fatal to him. lie engaged, however, in the 

duties of his profession, and was employed as a preacher in the 
church in this place. But his usefulness in thai calling, was des- 
tined to a short duration. He died on the 1-lth of September of 
the year following his arrival, corresponding in the new style, to 
the 26th of September; performing in his last act a work of liber- 
ality, destined, we trust, to stand while America shall endure, and 
with a usefulness as wide as its limits. 

By his last w ill. he bequeathed to the colony, for the endow ment 
of the school at Newtown, one moiety of his estate, amounting to 
a sum little short of eight hundred pounds : a bequest which, even 

in the presenl prosperous state of the country, would he thought 
liberal, and which, in its condition at that period, may truly be 
called munificent. 

Thi- donation gave an instantaneous impulse to the projected 
establishment. It was determined, by the Court, to erect the school 
into a college. In filial commemoration of the place where several 

of our fathers had been educated, the name of Newtown was 

changed to thai of Cambridge; and the college itself was called 
by that of Harvard. 

\]]t\ thus did our worthy founder hccoinc the instrument in the 
hand of IY<>\ idciice. of effecting the design, which the pious leaders 
of the colony had most at heart. Such he was fell to he by his 
contemporaries. In a letter written h\ some of them, in 1642, 

the) say, 'After God had carried ih safe to New-England, and 

We had builded our houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood, 

reared convenient place- for God's worship, and settled the civil 
government; one ol the next things we longed for and looked after, 
was to advance learning, and perpetuate it to posterity, dreading 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 165 

to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches, when our present 
ministers should lie in the dust. And as we were thinking and 
consulting how to effect this great work, it pleased God to stir up 
the heart of one Mr Harvard, (a godly gentleman and lover of 
learning, then living amongst us,) to give the one half of his estate 
towards the erecting of a college, and all his library.'* 

The college instantly went into operation, on the footing of the 
ancient institutions of Europe; and in 1642, four years only after 
the decease of Harvard, sent forth its first class of graduates into 
the community ; men who rose; to eminence in the ministry of the 
gospel, in professional life, and in the public service, both at home 
and abroad. One of the first class graduated at Cambridge, was 
sent, both by Cromwell and Charles II, as minister to the Slates 
General of Holland. One became a fellow of a College at Ox- 
ford; two received degrees of medicine at Leyden and Padua; one 
received a degree of divinity at Dublin ; and on one was conferred 
the degree of doctor of divinity at Oxford, then as now, the great- 
est academical distinction to which an English theologian can 
attain.f Nor was it without example, that young men were sent 
from England, to receive their education at Harvard college, within 
a few years after its foundation.! 

With such energy and spirit did our Alma Mater spring into 
being ; and so decisive is the evidence that, even in that first stage 
of the existence of the college, it furnished an education adequate 
to every department of the civil or sacred service of the country, 
and not inferior to that of the distinguished schools in Europe. 

I Jut it would belong rather to a history of the college than to a 
eulogy on its founder, to pursue this narrative. I will only add, 
that till about the end of the seventeenth century, it remained the 
only college in America, and consequently, up to that period, 
almost the only source of liberal education accessible to its children, 
this side of the Atlantic. 

It is, then, fellow students, one hundred and ninety years, this 
day, since the death of the man, who was recognized by his con- 

* New-England's First Fruits. Mass. Hist. Coll. I. p. 202. Old Series, 
t See note B, at the end. 

X Johnson's Wonder-Working Providence. Mass. Hist. Coll. New Series. 
VII. 29. 



itHi i \ mi rr»a on ltions. 

temporaries a^ the founder o( the most ancient seminar) in the 
country, tlie college where we received our education. In paying 
these honors to his single name, we <K> no injustice to other liberal 
benefactors of earlier or later times. It is a part of the merit o( 
those, who go forward in works oi public usefulness and liberality, 
that the) construct a basis, on which others of kindred temper, 
who come after them, ma) build ; and awaken a spirit, which may 
lead to services -till more important than their own. 

Bui considering the penury of the colony, the exhaustion o( its 
first settlers, and the extreme difficulty which must, in consequence, 
have attended the foundation of a college, it i- not eas) to estimate 
the full importance of the earl) and liberal benefactions of the man 
whom we commemorate. But for hi- generosity, the people might 
have been depressed for the want of the hopes which the} built on 
such an institution, and from the fear o( an uneducated posterity ; 
and societ) might so far have yielded to the various causes of 
degeneracy, incident to a remote and feeble colony, as never after- 
wards to have fell the importance o( learning, nor made provision 
for the education of the people; a result, we ma) safely sa) . which 
would have been fatal to the character o( this community. 

But it was otherwise ordered for our welfare* V generous spirit 
guided to our shores for no other purpose, as it would -rem. 
but to dispense the means requisite for the foundation o( the col- 
; n two hundred years have elapsed, and not much 

Kin >i\ thousand name- are home on the catalogue of the 
institution, whose venerable walls are indeed a noble monument to 
founder. There i- a tradition, that, tdl the revolutionary 
war. a grave-stone was standing on the hill, over the -pot where 
hi- ashes repose. With other similar memorials, it was destroyed 
at that period ; and nothing hut the same tradition remains, to guide 
us to the hallowed spot. On that spot we have erected a plain 
and simple hut. at the same time, we apprehend, a permanent 
memorial. It will add nothing to the renown ol him who is com- 
memorated b) it. hut it will guide the grateful student and the 
tt'ul stranger to the precincts ot that -pot. where all that is 
mortal rests, of one ol' the earliest ol' the country's benefactors. 

It i- constructed of our native granite, in a solid -halt ot" fifteen 
feet elevation, and in the simplest style of ancient art. On the 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. I 07 

eastern face of the shaft, and looking towards the land of his birth 
and education, we have directed his name to be inscribed upon the 
solid granite; and we propose to attach to it, in a marble tablet, 
this short inscription, in his mother tongue : — 

On the twenty-sixth day of September, A. I>. 1828, this Stone 
was erected by the Graduates of the University ;ii Cambridge, in 
honor of its Founder, who died ;ii ( Jharlestown, on the tw< uty- ixth 
day of September, A. I>. 16 '.'■',. 

On tin- opposite face of the shaft, and looking westward, toward 

the walls of the university which hears his name, we have provid- 
ed another inscription, which, in consideration of his character as 
the founder of a teat of learning, is expressed in the Latin tongue: 

In |)i;im et perpetuam memoriam Johani Harvardii, annis \'<-v<-. 
ducentis posl obitum ejus peractis, academia; quae esl Cantabrigiae 
Nov-Anglorum alumni, ne diutius vir de litteris nostris optime me- 
ritus sine monumento quamvis humili jaceret, hunc lapidem ponen- 
dum curavemnt. 

And now let no man deride our labor, however humble, as use- 
less or insignificant. With what, interest should we not gaze upon 
this simple and unpretending shaft, had it been erected at the de- 
cea <: ol him whom it commemorates, and did we now behold it 
gray with the moss, and beaten with the storms of two centuries! 
In a few years, we, who now perform this duty of filial observance, 
shall be a i tho e who are re ting beneath us ; but our children and 
our children's children, to the lati i generation, will prize this sim- 
ple memorial, first and chiefly for the sake of the honored name. 
which is graven on its face, but with an added feeling of kind 
remembrance of those who have united to pay this debt of grati- 
tude. 

And when we think of the mighty importance, in our commu- 
nity, of the system of public, instruction, and regard the venerable 
man whom we commemorate, as the first to set the example of 
contributing liberally for the endowment of places of education, (an 
example faithfully imitated in this region, in almost every succeed- 
ing age,) we cannot, as patriots, admit, that any honor, which it is 
in our power to pay to his memory, is beyond his desert, [fwe 



l(i- EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

further dwell on our own obligation, and consider that we ourselves 
have drank of the streams, that have flowed from this sacred well; 
that in the long connexion of cause and effect, which hinds the 
generations of men, as with links of steel, to each other, it is per- 
haps owing to his liberality, that we have enjoyed the advantages 
of a public education, we shall surely feel, as students, that the 
poor tribute we have united to render to his memory, falls infinitely 
below the measure either of his merit- or of our obligation. 

But, humble as they are, let these acts of acknowledgment 
impress on our bosoms a just estimate of desert. Of all the first 
fathers of New-England, the wise and provident rulers, the grave 
magistrates, the valiant captains, — those who counselled the peo- 
ple in peace, and led them in war, — the gratitude of this late pos- 
terity has first sought out the spot, where this transient stranger 
was laid to rest, scarce a year after his arrival in America. It is 
not that we are insensible to the worth of their characters, nor that 
we ;ne ungrateful for their services. But it was given to the ven- 
erated man, whom we commemorate this day, first to strike the 
key-note in the character of this people: — first to perceive with a 
prophet's foresight, and to promote with a princely liberality, con- 
sidering his means, that connexion between private munificence 
and public education, which, well understood and pursued by oth- 
ers, has given to New-England no small portion of her name and 
her praise in the land. What is there to distinguish our community 
so honorably as its institutions for general education, — beginning 
with its public schools, supported wholly by the people, and con- 
tinned through the higher institutions, in whose establishment and 
dotation public and private liberality has gone hand in hand ? What 
so eminently reflects credit upon us, and gives to our institutions a 
character not possessed by those of many other communities, as 
the number and liberality of the private benefactions, which have 
been made to them? The excellenl practice of liberal giving 
ha- obtained a currency here, which, if I mistake not, it pos 
in few other place-. Men give, not ninth from their abundance, 
but from their competence: and following the great example, 
which we now celebrate, of John Harvard, who gave hall his 

fortune and all his book-, it i- no uncommon thing for men to 

devote a very considerable portion of estates, not passing the hounds 
of moderation, to the endowmenl of public institution-. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 169 

And well does the example of Harvard teach us, that what is 
thus given away, is, in reality, the portion best saved and longest 
kept. In the public trusts to which it is confided, it is safe, as far 
as any thing human is safe, from the vicissitudes to which all else 
is subject. Here neither private extravagance can squander, nor 
personal necessity exhaust it. Here, it will not perish with the 
poor clay, to whose natural wants it would else have been appro- 
priated. Here, unconsumed itself, it will feed the hunger of mind, 
the only thing on earth that never dies ; and endure, and do good 
for ages, after the donor himself has ceased to live, in aught but his 
benefactions. 

There is, in the human heart, a natural craving to be remember- 
ed by those who succeed us. It is not the first passion which 
awakens in the soul, but it is the strongest which animates, and 
the last which leaves it. It is a sort of instinctive philosophy, 
which tells us, that we who live, and act, and move about the 
earth, and claim it for our own, are not the human race; that we 
are but a small part of it ; that those who are to follow us, when 
we are gone, and those that here lie slumbering beneath our feet, 
are with us but one company, of which we are the smallest part. 
It tells us, that the true glory of man is not that which blazes out 
for a moment, and dazzles the contemporary spectator ; but that 
which lives when the natural life is gone ; which is acknowledged 
by a benefitted and grateful posterity, whom it brings back, even 
as it does at this moment, with thankful offerings at an humble 
tomb ; and gives to an otherwise obscure name a bright place in 
the long catalogue of ages. 

We stand here amidst the graves of some of the earliest and 
best of the fathers and sons of New-England. Men of usefulness and 
honor in their generation, are gathered around us, and among them, 
no doubt, not a few, whose standing in the community, whose public 
services, and whose fortune placed them, in the estimate of their 
day, far above the humble minister of the gospel, who landed on 
our shores but to leave them forever. But were it given to man 
to live over the life that is passed, and could the voice of a superior 
being penetrate the clay on which we stand, and call on the 
sleepers to signify, whether they would not gladly exchange the 
wealth, the honors, and the influence they enjoyed, for the death- 
21 



170 EVERETT'S ((RATIONS. 

less name of this humble stranger, they would start upas one man, 
from beneath the sods that cover them. 

We have now, felloe students, discharged our duty to the mem- 
ory of a great benefactor of our country. In this age of commem- 
oration, as it lias been called, it was not meet that the earliest of 
those, to whom we all arc under obligations, should be passed over. 
Nor is it we, who are here assembled, nor the immediate inhabi- 
tants of this vicinity, who are alone united in this act of grateful 
commemoration. It is not the least of the prerogatives of the 
intellectual service, that its influence is as little bounded by space 
as by time. Not a few of the sons of Harvard, in the distant 
parts of the Union, have promptly contributed their mite towards 
the erection of this humble structure. While the college which he 
founded, shall continue to the latest posterity a monument not un- 
worthy of the most honored name, we trust that this plain memo- 
rial also will endure; and while it guides the dutiful votary to the 
spol where his ashes are deposited, will teach to those who survey 
it, the supremacy of intellectual and moral desert, and encourage 
them too, by a like munificence, to aspire to a name, as bright as 
thai which stands engraven on its shaft : 

clanun el vanerabile nomen 

GentiliuH, et iiiiiliuin nostrn quod proderat urbi 



NOTES. 



Note A, to page 163. Almost all the information in our posses- 
sion, on the subject of Harvard, is found in the following interest- 
ing Note of the learned and accurate editor of Winthrop's Journal. 
< We must regret that Winthrop has taken no notice of the ever 
honored name of Rev. John Harvard, except in the loose memo- 
randa at the end of his MSS. From our Colony Records I find, 
he was made free 2d November, 1637, at the same time with Rev. 
John Fiske. By a most diligent antiquary, John Farmer, Esq. of 
Concord, N. H., this information is given me from Rev. Samuel 
Danforth's Almanac for 1648: " 7mo. 14 day, 1638, John Harvard, 
Master of Arts, of Emmanuel College in Cambridge, deceased, 
and, by will, gave the half of his estate, (which amounted to about 700 
pounds,) for the erecting of the College." My correspondent adds, 
" I do not recollect that any other authority gives the exact time of 
his death, or the college at which he was educated." Johnson, lib. 
II. c. 12 and 19, has favored us with more than any other book. 
It is peculiarly vexatious to learn from Mather, of the founder of 
the college, which he so much and so often desired, happily in 
vain, to rule, only the amount of his bequest, and that he died of 
consumption. The sons of the oldest university in our country 
will be pleased with my extract, from our Colony Records, I. 179, 
of the first motion in this blessed work. " The court agreed to 
give 400 pounds toward a school or college, whereof 200 pounds 
to be paid the next year, and 200 pounds when the work is finish- 
ed, and the next court to appoint where and what building." This 
was in October, 1636, in the midst of the war with the Pequots, 
and the beginning of the Antinomian controversy, and we should 
remember that the appropriation was equal to a year's rate, of the 
whole colony. — Harvard's will was probably nuncuapative, as it is 
nowhere recorded.' — Savage's edition of Winthrop's Journal, vol. 
II. pp. 87, 88. 

Cotton Mather mentions £779 17s. 2d. as the precise sum 



172 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

bequeathed by Harvard. Governor Winthrop says about £800. 
[n New-England's First Fruife, Harvard's estate is sai<l to bave 
been ' in ;ill about £1700.' It is probable, therefore, that in the 
foregoing extract from Danforth's Almanac, we ought, instead of 
E700, to read 61700. A Latin elegy to the: memory of Harvard, 
written by John Wilson, is subjoined by .Mather to his account of 
the foundation of the college. In this elegy i in which Harvard is 
represented as speaking) the following lines occur: 

Me (licet indignuni) selegit gratia Cluisti 

Fundan.'in musis, qui pia tecta piis. 
(Nod quod vel chara moriena uxore carerem 

A nt hoeres alius quod inilii nullus crat); 
I l<i ii ilf- mi-. ipsp i in-os sed liiiqucrc suasit 

I sijue ad dimidium sortis opumque Deus; 
Sai ratusesse mihi sobolis, pietatis amore 

Educet illustres si schola nostra viros. 

From these lines it might he inferred as probable, that Harvard 
left a widow, and some other heir, who was not his son. 



Note B, to page 165. — The following is the first class of Har- 
vard ( Jollege, as it stands in the catalogue: 

L642. 
Benjamin W6odbridgc } M. Oxon. S. T. D. 
Georgii s Downino, Ivpios; Oliv. Crom. et Caro. II. leg. apud 

Resp. Bat. 
Johannes BulkL y, Mr. 
Gulielmus Hubbard, Mr. 
Sami i.i. lir.i.i.iM.ii \.m , M. M. I). Lugd. 
Johanm s Wilson, Mr. 

Henrk i s Saltonstall, M. I). Pad. et Oxon. Soc. 
Tom is Barnard. 
Nathaniel Brewster } Th. r>;ir. Dublin. 

( )i" these graduates at Harvard College, Woodbridge was 
settled in the ministry al Newbury in Berkshire, England. Curi- 
ous particulars of sir George Downing* are given in Hutchinson, 
Vol. I. p. 107, bul particularly in Savage's edition of Winthrop's 

• II. In- recently bei-ii made the subject of two rery learned and interesting 
lectures, delivered befbn thi Vlassachtuetts Historical Society, by tbe Rev. ('. W. 
Upham, of Salem. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 173 

Journal, Vol. II. p. 241, 242. A descendant of Sir George Down- 
ing, of the same name, founded Downing College, at Cambridge, in 
England, on a more liberal foundation than any other college in 
that university. Bulkley was settled as a clergyman at Fordham 
in England, and after his ejectment as a non-conformist, practised 
physic with success in London. He was the son of the eminent 
divine of the same name, the founder of Concord in Middlesex 
county. Hubbard was the minister of Ipswich, the famous histo- 
rian of New-England and of the Indian Wars. Wilson was 
minister of Dorchester, and is, with several others of this class, 
among whom are Barnard and Brewster, particularly commemo- 
rated by Johnson. 



\ P P E ND IX. 



(K the 6th of Septemberj 1827, a few gentlemen, graduates «>t' 
Harvard University, happened to In- assembled, at 1 1 1 * - bouse of 
Dr George Parkman, in Boston. Sonic conversation took place, 
on tlu- propriety of erecting a monument to the memory of John 
Harvard, tin- founder of tin- University at Cambridge. The 
proposal met with the heart) concurrence of the gentlemen present, 
and was believed to In- one, which would prove acceptable to the 
graduates at large. In order to carry it into effect, without 
unnecessary delay, it was determined to proceed immediately to 
ihi- adoption o[ tin- steps, necessary to lie taken to bring the sub- 
ject before tin- alumni of tin- college. The Meeting was accord- 
ingly organized, ami in pursuance to the resolutions adopted bj it, 
the following Circular was issued. 

■ \ meeting of a few individuals, who have received their education at Harvard 
College, w.i- held hi Boston, on the t>tl> instant The Hon. F. C. Gra) was called 
1,1 the chair, and Mr I". Everett appointed Secretary. 

The object of the meeting was stated to be, to consider the propriety of paying 
a tribute of respect to the memorj of John Harvard, founder of the I aiversitj at 
Cambridge, bj erecting .1 suitable monument, in the grave-yard, at Charlestown, 
where he lies buried: ami, on motion, it was 

lived, That the Chairman and Secretary of tins meeting be requested to pre- 
pare a statamenl on tin- subject, to be aubmhted to the graduates of Harvard 
College, inviting a subscription of one dollar each, lor die object proposed. 

Resolved, Thai the Mow. 1'. 0. Thatcher !»• requested to ad as Treasurer of the 
Fund to !»• raised; ami, that the Chairman, Secretary, and Treasurer, adopt the 
requisite measures tor the erection of the monument 
'I'll-- meeting was then dissolved. 

( lopj from tli-- Record. 

Vttest, I I>\\ \KD l\ ERETT, Sacrstary.' 



In pursuance of the foregoing resolutions, tin- undersigned beg 
i.. Bubmit tin- following statement to the graduates of Har- 

\ ard < "11' 



EVERETT'S ORATION ■ \~~> 

John Harvard was educated at Emmanuel College, in the University of Cam- 
bridge, in England, and, having received the degree (if Master of Art*, wan settled 
as a minister in that country. He came over to America, as is supposed, in 1637, 
having been admitted a freeman of the Colony, on the 2d of November, in that 
year. After his arrival in this country, he preached a short lime at CharlestOWn, 

but wan laboring under consumption, and died September 14th, lb:**. By his 
Will, he left the half of his e-tate, (which amounted m the whole to 15591. 14s. 
■\il. ) as an endowment of the College, which the General Court, tv. o years before, 
bad determined to establish; and which, in honor of this singular liberality, was, 

by order of the Court, thenceforward called by his name. 

These few facts are all, which our histories have preserved to as, relative to this 
ever-honored name. The previous life of the stranger, who, in the ihorl pace of 
a year passed in a .state of declining health, was able to lay this greal foundation of 

good, for remote posterity, is unknown. Of hi^ brief ministry in Charli 
nothing Ls recorded. We are unacquainted even with the age at which he died ; 
and DO memorial exists to point out the spot, where bin asln -s rest, ujion the bury- 
ing lull, m Charlestown. 

In our ancient and venerable University, a most illustrious, and, we trust, 
imperishable monument has been reared to bis memory. But it has appeared to 
many of the children of our Alma Mater, Oast common respect toward the nam'- of 
a public benefactor, suggests the propriety of marking out, by a suitable memorial, 
the Bpot where his mortal remains are deposited. It seeme unbecoming that the 
stranger, who inquires for such a memorial of the earliest benefactor of the cause of 
education in the country, should be told that none such has been raised. 

Under the influence of these feedings, the undersigned have been directed to sub- 
mit to the consideration of those, who have received their education at Harvard 
College, the propriety of erecting a simple and suitable monument to the memorj 
of itri founder, on the burying bill in Charlestown. It is proposed, that it should be 
a plain, substantial, permanent work, of moderate COSt, to be executed in hewn 
granite. With a view to unite, in tin- dutiful act, as many of the sons of Harvard 
as approve the object, it has been thought proper to limit the proposed subscription 
to one dollar from each individual. Although it is only to the sons of Harvard, 
that the undersigned have thought themselves authorized directly to address tin- 
invitation, yet, as tin; College at Cambridge may be regarded a- the parent stock of 
nearly all the .New England seminaries, we shall cordially welcome the cooperation 
of those among us, who, although not educated at Cambridge, share with us, in 

our resped for the memory of the first benefactor of American Letter-. 

OOn as the requisite arrangements can take place, personal application will be 
made to tin- alumni of the College resident in Boston and Other large towns, with a 

view of receiving the subscription , to the amount of one dollar from each individual, 
of those who may be inclined to unite in this act of dutiful commemoration. Gen- 
tlemen to whom, from their remote and dispersed places of residence, it n 
be practicable to make this personal application, are invited to transmit their sub- 
scription by letter, addressed to the Secretary. A li-t of the- subscribers, with a 
memorandum of ili< proceedings towards effecting the object proposed, will be 
deposited in tic; archives of Harvard College. 
The suitable steps for erecting the work will be taken without a . delay. 



17() r.VKKKTT'S ORATIONS. 

Meantime h u teqneftted, aa ilii- statement is not addressed to the public, that it 
m:i\ not Bad its way into the oewBgrnpen. 

r. c. GRAY, ChaitTttan. 

EDWARD i:\T.KF.TT, Secretary. 
Duttmi, Mih September, I 



In consequence of this invitation, a considerable number of the 
graduates of tin- college subscribed the sum proposed, toward the 
tii. iion of the monument. In the summer of 1828, the committee 
of arrangements found themselves enabled to proceed to the 
execution of their trust. They applied to the selectmen of 
Charlestown, tor permission to erect the monument, on the bury- 
ing hill in that town, which request was promptly granted. \ 
contract was then entered into, between the treasurer of the fund 
and .Mr Solomon Willard, architect, for the immediate execution 
of the work. In pursuance of this contract, the monument was 
hewn, by permission, from the quarry of the Hunker Hill Monu- 
ment Association, at Quincy. Mr Mmoran Holmes was employed 
by the arehitecl to transport it from the quarry to the burying hill. 
For this purpose nineteen poke of oxen were employed. In 

weight is between twelve and thirteen tons. It was raised to its 
positioD on the bill, by Mr Holmes, on the 26th of the month by the 
application of a powerful apparatus, by which the mass was held 
suspended freely in the air, till, at a signal iriven., it was low end 
to its destined [dace. 

The monument is a solid obelisk, fifteen feet in height, tour feet 
square at the larger extremity, and two at the smaller, and ris< - 
from a substantial foundation, without a base, from the surface of 
the ground. On the eastern lace is inscribed the name of Har- 
vard, in large letter.- and in high relief; the first experiment, it is 
believed, of this kind, in working the granite of this country. 
Beneath this name is an English inscription, and on the opposite 
face an inscription in Latin, wrought in white marble tablets \>\ Mr 
A. Carey, and attached to the shaft. The monument is enclosed 
in a simple iron railing, surrounding a space nine feel square, and 
stands on a beautiful and commanding position, on the top of the 
bur^ ing hill in < 'harlestown. 

The - ,,; th day of September, being the anniversary ofthe decease 
< f Harvard, was fixed upon for the erection of the monument, of 
which notice was given in the public papers the day before. The 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 177 

Corporation and Faculty of Harvard College, the President of the 
United States, the Rev. Dr Kirkland, the Committee appointed by 
the citizens of Charlestown, on the subject of the monument, Hon. 
T. H. Perkins, president of the Bunker Hill Monument Associ- 
ation, and S. Willard, Esq. architect of the monument, had been 
invited by the Committee of Arrangements to attend on this occasion. 
A large company of spectators, students of the university, and 
citizens at large, were also present. At eleven o'clock precisely, 
the Rev. Dr Walker, pastor of the second congregational church 
in Charlestown, introduced the ceremonial by a prayer, and the 
monument was then lowered to its permanent position. 

The President of the United States, having been obliged to 
return to Washington, and being thereby prevented from attending 
on this occasion, had addressed the following letter to Dr Parkman, 
a member of the Committee of Arrangements, which was now 
read. 

Washington, 21st September, 1828. 
Dear Sir, 

Among the many privations incident to my sudden but necessary departure from 
home, to return to my family here, was that of the pleasure which I had indulged 
the hope of enjoying, by personal participation in that act of filial reverence to the 
memory of our common benefactor, ' one Mr Harvard,' in which you are so 
worthily engaged. 

In compliance with your request, I had I believe rashly promised to address a 
few remarks to the spectators who may be assembled to witness the erection of 
this tardy monument, — a monument creditable to the feelings of those by whom it 
is now raised, but which can add little to the renown of him whom it is intended to 
honor. 

The name of Harvard is not one of those, towards which his own age, or their 
posterity can be chargeable with ingratitude. From the very interesting printed 
paper enclosed in your letter, it appears that from the first institution of the college 
it received his name, an honor far beyond the reach of brass, marble, or granite. 
A single act of posthumous benevolence has enrolled him among the benefactors of 
mankind: and of the thousands, who in the lapse of two centuries have drank from 
the fountain of living waters opened in the rock of the desert at the touch of his 
staff, what soul so insensible has there been among them, as not to cherish the 
memory of him, to whose bounty they have been indebted for so much of their 
intellectual cultivation, and of their moral refinement? His name, identified from 
the first, with the university which he founded, shares in all the honors of all her 
sons; and his bequest, the amount of which must be measured by the spirit with 
which it was bestowed, has erected to his honor a monument, in the heart of every 
pupil admitted within her walls, which renewed from year to year, and multiplied 
from age to age, will endure long after granite, brass, and marble shall have 
crumbled into dust. 

22 



L78 l-.VKKKTT'S (tUATIONS. 

I do not think it surprising th.it the ootemporarj memorials of the person and 
character of Mr 1 [arvard are bo Bcant} . \ our - V n -I agland's First Fruits ' men- 
tion him with honor as a godl] gentleman, and a lover of learning; bnt these were 
qualities vor] common among the Brsl settlers of New-England. All the principal 
founders both of the Plymouth and Massachusetts colonies were persons of family . 
education, and high intellectual refinement Neither trading, speculation, imr 
romantic adventure, had an] share in the motives of their emigration. There mighl 
be, and doubtless was, some mixture of worldlj ambition interwoven with the pur- 
of individuals among them, bul in the annals of the world New-England 
Btands alone, as emphaticall] the colon] of conscience. Mr Harvard was not one 
of the original settlers Hi ime eight or ten years after them, when provision had 
been amply made for the first wains ^i' nature and of society. Pood, raiment, 
shelter, the worship of God, and civil government, had all been successively acquired 
and instituted. These are the first necessities of civilized man, ami these having 
been supplied, the next in natural course was education. Harvard came with a 
considerable estate, precise!) at the time when this want was pressing most heavily 
upon them. Other colonies have fallen into the practice of sending their children 
to be educated in the schools and colleges of the mother country. But it was 
precisely against the doctrines of those schools and colleges, thai the New-England 
colonies had been settled. They were therefore debarred of that resource, and 

con-trained to rely for tli lneation of their children upon themselves. 

Harvard was himself a clergyman. Possessed of a fortune competent to a 

comfortable subsistence in his native country . his emigration could have been dic- 
tated only by principles of moral and religious duty. Bui these motive- weir 
common to the great mass of the first settlers, whose sincerity had been tested bj 
greater sacrifices and Bufferings, than appear to have been required or endured by 
him. He probabhj was not involved in those vehement religious controversies upon 
questions unintelligible to as and to them, but upon which they wasted their under- 
standing and their affections. He was not distinguished among the divines of the 
age as a disputant He took a less beaten path to the veneration of after times, 

and a shorter road tO heaven. 

1 shall assuredly be with you at the performance of your truly filial duties, in 
spirit and inclination. For your kind good wishes accept the heart] return and 
thank- of your friend and brother pupil of Harvard, 

J. ll. ADAMS. 

To l >r * ; . . . i -i Pai i. B 

The foregoing Address was then delivered l>\ Mr E. I'.\ er^tt, 
a member of the Committee of Arrangements, and a1 their request. 



SPEECH 



DELIVERED AT A PUBLIC DINNER AT NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE, 
2D JUNE, 1829. 



Mr President and Gentlemen, 

The sentiment which has just heen announced, and the kind 
attention, of which I find myself, on this occasion, the object, de- 
mand my particular acknowledgments. Coming among you from 
a remote district of the country ; personally acquainted, on my 
arrival, with but a single individual, besides your distinguished 
representative in Congress ; possessing none of those public and 
political claims on your notice, which are usually acknowledged by 
courtesies of this kind, I find myself the honored guest of this day ; 
cordially greeted by so large a company, where I could have ex- 
pected only to form a few acquaintances ; and made to feel myself 
at home in the land of strangers. I should feel that sense of op- 
pression, which unmerited honor ought always to produce, did 1 
look within myself for the reason of this flattering distinction. It 
is not there, gentlemen, that I look for it. I know that it flows 
from a much higher source ; from your ready hospitality; — from 
your liberal feeling, which is able to take in those parts of the 
Republic which are the most remote from you ; and which disposes 
you, even toward the person of an individual stranger, to strengthen 
the bonds of good will, between all the brethren of the great Amer- 
ican family. It is in this view of the subject alone, that 1 could 
reconcile my accepting this kind proffer of your public attentions, 



l-() KVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

with the inoffensive privacy, which it is my study to preserve in my 
I >■ • nit journey ; for the sake of which I have been led, on more 
than one occasion, since I left home, to express a wish to he ex- 
cused from similar attentions on the part of political friends; 
attentions which would have implied a public standing which 1 do 
not possess ; and would have caused my excursion to be ascribed 
to another than its real motive. 

Thai motive. gentlemen, is the long cherished wish to behold, 
with my own eyes, this western world, not of promise merely, but 
ofmosl astonishing and glorious fulfilment. The wonders, as they 
may justly be called, of the W'.-t ; the prodigious extent of the 
territory ; the magnitude of the streams, that unite into one great 
system the remotest parts of this boundless region ; — the fertility of 
its soil, of which the accounts, till they are verified by actual obser- 
vation, seem rather like the fables of romance than sober narrative, 
were among the earliest objects that attracted my youthful curiosity. 
While visiting some of the most ancient abodes of civilization in 
the elder world, 1 had frequent occasion to observe, (and I have 
no doubt. Mr President,* that your observation confirmed the fact,) 
thai the curiosity of the intelligent men of Europe is more awake, 
on the subjeel of this than of any other portion of our country. 
Of the Atlantic coasl they have some general knowledge, arising 
from the length of time since it was settled, and the political events 
of which it has been the theatre; but the valley of the Mississippi 
seems to have presented itself, as it were suddenly, to their imag- 
inations, as a mosl peculiar, important, and hitherto comparatively 
unknown region. Bui from the time, that I have been led more 
particularly to reflect on the Western country, in its social relations 
to the resl of the Union, 1 have felt an irresistible de-ire to endeav- 
or to understand] from personal observation, the stupendous work 
of human advancement, which i> lure going on. and ofwhich the 
history of mankind certainly affords no Other example. I cannot 

but think it the mosl interesting subject of contemplation, which 

the world at presenl affords. Vpafl from the grand natural features 
of the scene, — the aspeel of populous towns springing like an exha- 

n , (,. i w Campbell, I 3 cretary of the Treasury, and minister of 

the I uited St 3 P -imrg. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 181 

lation from the soil, of a vacant or savage wilderness transmuted 
in one generation, into a thickly inhabited territory, — must cer- 
tainly appeal as strongly to the inquisitive mind, as the sight of 
crumbling towers, — of prostrate columns, — of cities once renowned 
and powerful reduced to miserable ruins, — and crowded provinces 
turned into deserts. While these latter objects are thought suffi- 
cient to reward the traveller for a distant pilgrimage to foreign 
countries, he may well be pardoned for feeling himself attracted by 
the opposite spectacle which is presented to him at home : a scene 
not of decay, but of teeming life ; of improvement almost too rapid 
to seem the result of human means. 

It is a remark often quoted of a celebrated foreign statesman, 
(M. de Talleyrand,) that America presents, as you travel west- 
ward, in point of space, the same succession of appearances, which 
may be traced in Europe, as you go back in point of time ; — that 
as you move from the coast toward the interior, on this continent, 
you pass through those stages of civilization, which are found in 
Europe as you follow its history back to the primitive ages. If we 
take the aboriginal tribes of our continent into the survey, there is 
some foundation for the remark ; but applied to our own popula- 
tion, it is rather ingenious than solid. The scene presented, by our 
western country, is not that of a barbarous race, growing up like 
the primitive tribes of Europe, into civilized nations ; but it is the 
far more rapid and intelligent progress of a civilized people, extend- 
ing itself through a rude wilderness, and transplanting the mature 
arts of life into the hidden recesses of the forest. The traveller, 
who penetrates a thousand or two thousand miles from the coast 
to the interior, may find, it is true, the log hut of the first settler, 
as he may find within the limits of Philadelphia and New- York, 
aye, of Paris or London, many a wretched hovel far less commo- 
dious ; but he will also find here substantial dwellings, — spacious 
and even magnificent mansions, — the abodes of competence and 
of abundance, — surrounded by all the indications of the improved 
arts of life. I have learned, to my astonishment, that within 
twenty years the city of Nashville has grown up, from not exceed- 
ing four or five brick houses, to its present condition, as a large, 
populous, and thriving capital ; the mart of a great and increasing 
commerce, exhibiting, for the number of its inhabitants, as many 



I 32 l -\ EBETT'S OB \Tlo\-. 

costh edifices, as any citj in the Union. The log houses have 
disappeared, not in the lapse of two thousand, or even of two 
hundred years, bu1 in the lapse of twenty years. The primitive 
forts of the old hunters are -one. not by the de< aj of age, but in 
the progress of societ) for a single generation. Far as we are from 
the coast, we walk abroad and find ourselves, aol in the rude in- 
fancy of society, but in the midsl of its arts, its refinements, and 
its eleganci< s, — the product nol of centuries, bul of the life of 
man. We are told, thai 

• \ thousand years scarce Berve to form ;i bI 
An hour maj lay it. in the dust.' 

The revi ms almost true While we contemplate in 

Europe the fate of kingdoms, that have been tottering for ages on 
the brink of decay, slowly dying for a thousand years, we behold 
our own republics rising into maturity, within the experience of a 
generation. Were they not our countrymen, our fathers: did not 
re) hairs of a few surviving veterans carry conviction to our 
mind-, we could scarce credit the narrative of the pioneers of the 
rn settlements. It was not till 1764, that even Daniel Boone, 
whose flight from wilderness to wilderness forms a sort of Hegira 
in the West, made his appearance in Easl Tennessee. 'The first 

cession of land obtained by treat) of the Indians in this State, is 
of no older date than April. I ~i'i"). — a momentous month, as if the 
greal order of events in the country's progress required, thai simul- 
taneously as the blow was Struck, which gave independence to 
America, the portals of the western mountains should be thrown 
open to her -on-, who had hitherto been forbidden, by authority 
from the ( 'row n, to extend their settlements beyond the Ohio. Ul 
those high-spirited adventurers cannot have passed off the stage, 
who moved forward at the head of the column of the firsl emigrants. 

It is related, that in the year l~<>(>. not a white man was found 

settled on the Tennessee or the Cumberland, by a party, who, in 
that year, descended these rivers. The population of the State, 
at the present period, cannot be less than 600,000. 

Bui it is not merely the rapid growth of the western settlements 
into populous States, thai surpri e the traveller from tin 
For i /th 1 >t be pr< pared I 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 183 

in the statistical tables of the country, and because, as a mere 
matter of figures, he cannot but comprehend it. That which 
strikes him with astonishment is the advanced state of the commu- 
nity, — the social improvement which he witnesses. He finds this 
great region abounding not merely with fertile lands, but with highly 
cultivated farms, filled, not with wild hunters, but with a substantial 
yeomanry. The forests are interspersed, like the regions he has 
left, with villages active with all the arts of life : — he descends 
the mighty rivers in one of those floating castles, — half ware-house 
and half palace, — which the genius of Fulton has launched on all 
our waters ; built here in greater numbers than in the East, and 
with at least equal magnificence ; and on these rivers he finds, from 
Pittsburg down to New-Orleans, a succession of large towns sur- 
passed only by a few of the Atlantic cities; growing fast into 
rivalry with some of them ; — and already rich not merely in wealth, 
but in all the refinements of life, and in all the institutions that 
adorn the nature of social, intellectual, moral, and religious man. 

Such a spectacle cannot be contemplated, without mingled feel- 
ings of astonishment and gratification. I am sure you will pardon 
me for adding, that it enhances the pleasure with which a son of 
New-England contemplates it, to find that among those who have 
swelled the numbers of this great family, — who have come not 
merely to share your prosperity, but in former days to partake the 
more doubtful fortunes of the early settlements, — are not a few of 
the children of that distant region. He rejoices that he is able, in 
addition to the ties of common language, government, and laws, to 
trace those of common origin and kindred blood. Nor does he 
rejoice alone. The feeling, I am sure, is mutual. This festive 
occasion, gentlemen, is a pledge that you too are not less willing 
to seize an opportunity however slight, of promoting that mutual 
good will, which is more important for the perpetuity of the Union, 
than all the forms of the Constitution. 

The beloved land of my birth, gentlemen, compared with yours, 
is, generally speaking, a barren region. Our rocks and sands yield 
not those rich harvests which clothe your more fertile soil with 
plenty ; nor are we connected with our sister states by noble streams 
like yours, which penetrate the country for thousands of miles, and 
bind the deepest interior to the marts on the coast. But I may 



1-1 El EBETT 8 ORATIONS. 

venture to assure you, on behalf of mj Fellow citizens al borne, that 
we behold, not with envy, but with pride, your natural advanl 
and wonderful progress. When we are visited by strangers from 
Europe, after we have shown them what is mosl worthy of notice 
among ourselves, we habitually add, thai this is little, compared 
with the astonishing advancement of the West. We boast of your 
improvements as more surprising than our own. We arc in the 
habit of contrasting our comparatively tardy progress under a foreign 
colonial system with your more rapid growth, beneath the cheering 

influence of American Independence. We look to you to c - 

plete the great undertaking, which was bul begun bj the fathi rs of 
the American people, who settled the Atlantic coast. Reflecting 
men in that region never n -aided the greal work to be performed 
in America, as confined to the settlement of the strip along the 
shore. It was t<> open the whole western world as an abode of 
civilized freemen, and we wish you (iod-speed in accompli-him; 
your share of the noble work. Two centuries have passed away 
since the first settlers of the Atlantic coasl were struggling with 
those hardships, which the generation immediately preceding you 
was here called to encounter; and we cordially rejoice, that a 
period of thirty years has purchased for you thai security and pros- 
perity, which were with us the growth of a. centur) and a half. 
\\ ;. el happy in the belief, that in your further advancement you 
will not forg< t the cradles of the American race, and thai you will 

hear in kindly rcuie mhrance the men and the deeds, which are 

among the dearesl title- of our glory. In casting the eye over the 
map of your Siate. we hehold among the names of your counties, 
those of our Lincoln, Greene, Knox, Warren and Perry. Wefeel 

that our heart- are thus linked tOg( liar b) the tie of C OD devo- 
tion to the precious memory of our greal and good men; and we 

confidently resl in the assurance, that when the presenl generation, 
with u- a- with you, shall have passed away, our children w ill unite 
with yours, in the tribute of gratitude to those, who. whether at 
the North or Smth. the Easl or the West, have triumphed or bled, 
ha\c stood or fallen, in their country'- cause. 

<■ ntlemen, it has been justlj stated, that when the next census 

shall he taken, the valley of the Mississippi will probably he found 

Itain a population larger than that with winch the old tlnrtei n 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 185 

States plunged into the revolutionary war, and when, after a period 
of ten years more, yet another enumeration shall be made, you will 
then perhaps outvote us in the councils of the nation. The scep- 
tre will then depart from Judah, never to return. We look for- 
ward to that event without alarm, as in the order of the natural 
growth of this great republic. We have a firm faith that our 
interests are mutually consistent ; that if you prosper we shall 
prosper, if you suffer we shall suffer ; that our strength will grow 
with the closeness of our union ; and that our children's welfare, 
honor, and prosperity will not suffer in the preponderance, which, 
in the next generation, the West must possess in the balance of the 
country. 

One word more, Gentlemen, and I will relieve your patience. 
In the course of human events, it is certain that we, who are now 
assembled, shall never all be assembled together again. It is prob- 
able, that when we shall part this evening, the most of us will do 
it to meet no more on earth. Allow me, with the seriousness insep- 
arable from that feeling, to assure you, that this unexpected and 
flattering mark of your kindness will never be forgotten by me or 
mine ; but at whatever distance of time or place, and in whatever 
vicissitudes of fortune, will be remembered, as one of the most 
grateful incidents of my life. Permit me, in taking my seat, to 
reciprocate the sentiment last announced, by proposing, — 

The Inhabitants of Nashville, may their Prosperity, 
like their clty, be founded on a rock. 

23 



s |> E EC II 

DELIVERED vr \ i-i iti.n DINNEB AT LEXINGTON, KENTUCKY, 
ITrn JUNE, 1829. 



Ill l'l, i - : • i n r AND Genii i mi \ . 

Ci 3TOM and propriety forbid me to remain silent ; but I hope 
it would be superfluous, as I ;un sure it would be unavailing, to 
nth-mpt to express my feelings, <>n receiving the kind attentions of 
this company. No gentleman, who has bimself bad occasion, 
while absent from home, to experience the value of acts of private 
or public hospitality, will doubt the sentiments excited in me, b\ 
these testimonials of your favorable opinion. If the voice of wel- 
come, that awaits him beneath his own roof, on bis return home, 
make the most direct appeal to the sensibilities of the traveller, it 
is with a satisfaction scarcely inferior, heightened bj a sense of 
obligation, that he receives, in a distanl region, those proof- of 
kindness and assurances of good will, in which he seems to recov< r 
some of the besl endearments of home in the land of -nan ; . i . I 
would spare you, Gentlemen, — I would spare myself, — the effort 
cribe, in set phrases, what, if felt, needs no explanation; 
whai.it it lie not felt, cannot be explained; and beg you, with 
the plainness of a sincere and grateful heart, to believe; that I place 
the proper value on this public and cordial manifestation of your 
friendl) feeling; and that, while 1 take to myself, — and feel hon- 
ored in di much of it a- Hows from your hospitable 

d toward b stranger, 1 rejoice more specially in this festive 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 187 

meeting, as a pledge of good will between the distant sections of 
the Union, to which we respectively belong. That Union, gentle- 
men, resting as it does on a political basis, must derive much of its 
strength and value from harmony and cordiality between the distant 
members. In a despotic government, resting on the principle of 
the immediate subordination of all the parts to one head, this har- 
mony among the subjects is not necessary. It may even be the 
interest of the sovereign to play off the jealousies of the different 
parts of the state against each other ; thus preventing them from 
combining against himself. But in a popular government, where 
every thing is ultimately referred to the will of the citizens, mutual 
good will between them is all-important. 

It is therefore most fortunate for us, that the basis, on which our 
Union rests, is natural, broad, and stable. The several parts of 
which it is composed, have not been bound to each other, by the 
measures of a preponderating political power, exerted by the 
stronger members to attach the weaker to their sovereignty. Nor 
do we owe our gathering together into this family of States, to the 

intermarriage of northern Ferdinands with southern Isabellas. 

Our Union was not cemented by the sealing wax of diplomatic 
congresses, — where foreign statesmen sit in judgment, to parcel out 
reluctant provinces among rival empires; — nor by the blood of 
disastrous battle fields. Had such been the origin of our associa- 
tion, we might have expected, that incurable antipathies would 
exist between the discordant members, and that a union, com- 
menced in power, violence, or intrigue, would continue in disgust 
while it lasted, and end in civil war. On the contrary, among 
numerous instructive aspects, in which our political system presents 
itself to the contemplation of the friends of Liberty, none is more im- 
portant than that, in which it teaches the most auspicious mode of 
extending a popular government over a vast region of country, filled 
by a rapidly increasing population, by means of a confederation of 
States. The superficial observer, not merely abroad, but at home, may 
regard the multiplication of States, with their different local interests, 
as an alarming source of dissension, threatening eventual destruction 
to the Republic. But had the sagacity of the most profound 
politician been exercised, to contrive a mode in which the continent 
of North America should become one broad theatre, for the exercise 



1-- EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

of the rights and the enjoyment and perpetuation of the privileges 
of republican government and rational liberty, it ma) well be 
doubted, whether any other so effectual, so prompt, and at the 
same time so simple, could have been devised by him, as the crea- 
tion of a number of separate States, successivel) formed, as a pdp- 
ulation becoming dense in the older settlements, had poured itself 
into the newer fields of adventure and promise ; united by a con- 
federacy in the pursuit of all objects of common and general interest ; 
and separate, independent, and sovereign, as to all of individual 
concern. It is thus, that our Union is extending itself, not as a 
mere matter of political arrangement, still less b) compulsion and 
power, but by the choice and act of the individual citizens. 

What have we seen in all the newly settled portions of the Union? 
The bard} and enterprising youth finds society in the older settle- 
ments comparative!] filled up. His portion of the old family farm 
is too narrow to satisfy his wants or his desires, and he goes forth, 
with the paternal blessing, and generally with little else, to take up 
his share of the rich heritage, which the God of nature has spread 
before him in this western world. He quits the land of his fathers. 
— the scenes of his earl) days, — with tender regret glistening in 
his eye, though hope mantles on his cheek. He does not, as he 
departs, shake off the dust of the venerated soil from his feet; but 
the hank of some distant river, to perpetuate the remem- 
brance of the home of his childhood. He piously bestows the 
name of the spol where he was horn, on the spot to which he has 
wandered ; and while he is laboring with the difficulties, struggling 
with the privations, languishing perhaps under the diseases incident 
to the new settlement and the freshly opened soil, he remembers 
the neighborhood whence he sprang; the roof that sheltered his 
infancy : the spring thai gushed from the rock by his father's door; 
where he was wonl to bathe his heated forehead, after the toil of 
In- youthful sports; the village school-house; the rural church: 
of his father and his mother. In a few years a new 

community has been formed; the forest has disappeared, beneath 
the stord) arm of the emigrant; his children have grown up. the 
hard) offspring of the new clime; and the rising settlement is 

already linked in all its partialities and associations with that from 
which its lather- and founders had wandered. Such, for the mOSl 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 189 

part, is the manner in which the new States have been built up ; 
and in this way a foundation is laid, by nature herself, for peace, 
cordiality, and brotherly feeling, between the ancient and recent 
settlements of the country. 

It is, however, the necessary course of things, that as the newly 
settled portion of the country is organized into States, possessing 
each the local feeling and local interests of separate political com- 
munities, some prejudices, — like the domestic dissensions of the 
members of the same family, — should spring up among them, or 
between them and the older States. These may owe their origin 
to the more exclusive settlement of some of the new States, from 
some of the old ones respectively ; to supposed inconsistency of 
the interests of different sections of the country ; to the diver- 
sity of manners incident to the peculiarity of geographical and social 
position, and the leading pursuits of life ; or to the conflicts of 
party politics, which are of necessity, in a free country, often 
capricious, and as violent as they are uncertain. From these and 
other causes, on which I need not dwell, and without any impeach- 
ment of the prosperous operation of our system, prejudices may 
arise between the different sections of the country, calculated to 
disturb that harmony, for which a deep foundation is laid in nature, 
and which it is all-important to preserve, and if possible to increase. 
To remove these prejudices, to establish kind feelings, to promote 
good will between the different members of the political family, 
appears to me, without exception, the most important object at 
which a patriotic citizen, in any portion of the country, can aim. 
Our union is our strength, and our weakness too : Our strength, 
so long as it exists unimpaired and cherished ; our weakness, when- 
ever discord shall expose a vulnerable point to hostile art or power. 
Even the separate prosperity of the States, supposing they could 
prosper separately, which they cannot, is not enough : I had almost 
said, is to be deprecated. They ought, for their perfect safety, to 
owe their prosperity, in some degree, to each other ; to mutual 
dependence ; to common interest, and the common feeling derived 
from it, or strengthened by it. 

It is with these sentiments, (if I may be permitted to allude to 
my own public conduct before a company of gentlemen of various 
political opinions, and on an occasion consecrated to the oblivion 



I 9Q i.\ CBETT'S OB tXIONS. 

of ever] topic of party strife,) that since I have been a member of 
( I have supported the policy, which aims to open or to 

perfeci the communication between the distanl sections of the coun- 
try, particularly by the extension and preservation of the National 
Road. The State of which I am a citizen, has ahead) paid be- 
tween one and two hundred thousand dollars inward the construc- 
tion and repair of that road ; and I doubt nol she is prepared tq 
contribute her proportion toward- it- extension to the place of its 
destination, as w< II as inward the completion of the fill] d< sign, by 
constructing a lateral branch, through this State, and the States 
south uf Kentucky, to the gulf of Mexico. The friends of inter- 
Dai improvement in the Atlantic Stair-, do not pretend to be 
indifferent to their own interest. Thej know- that the .National 
Road is a highway for the products of their factories, their fisheries, 
and their commerce. But 1 trust also they act upon higher prin- 
ciples, — a regard to the national Union; thai the] perceive what 
Washington perceived, and began to inculcate, in the very moment 
of cessation from war, — almosl he fore he had put off his harness, — 
that nothing is more essentia] to the strength of this Union, than 
an easj communication from Easl to West. 

Subsidiary, in no small degree, to this, and every other measure 
of legislative enactment aiming at the same end. is that interchange 
of the courtesies of social life, by which kind feelings are to be 
awakened or fostered. Vs between individuals, so between States, 
which are composed of individuals, there is a temper and a fei 
as important to he rightly directed as the course of legislation or 
the public policy. 05? this topic, although perhaps more appro- 
priate to the occasion, I could not, within an) reasonable limits, 
nor without going beyond the bounds of delicac) toward- the audi- 
ence 1 addre.-. express all that I feel ; all that has been inspired 
in in) bosom, by what I have witnessed of the courtesy, the cor- 
diality, the hospitality of the West. 1 would not. to he sine, he 
thought to have been so uninformed of any pan of the country, as 
to he wholly ignorant of the state of public sentimenl prevailing in 

it. on an) important point. But it will not. I hope, he thought 

impertinent, if I say, that i; ha been, not without some surprise, 

I a- the highest gratification, that I have made a journi . of 

md lorn- thousand mile- m the West, in the public 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 191 

conveyances by land and water, always without a companion, often 
unknown ; and without having heard a syllable, which could give 
pain to the feelings of (what I trust I shall ever show myself,) a 
dutiful son of New-England. I cannot but cherish the hope, that 
improving means of communication between the States, will put it 
in the power of increasing numbers of our brethren in other parts 
of the Union, to give as good an account of that portion of it, to 
which I belong, and from an experience as agreeable. 

Gentlemen, there is no place in the West, I have taken a greater 
interest in visiting, than your hospitable town ; an interest strength- 
ened by the former residence of a beloved and lamented brother 
among you, and his connexion with the university here established, 
which has already done so much, and is destined, I am sure, to do 
so much more, for the public good in this part of the country. 
Every patriot, every reflecting man, who considers that useful 
knowledge, widely diffused, is the only sure basis of enlightened 
freedom, sympathizes with you in your regret for that disaster, 
which has reduced its well provided apartments and stately walls 
to melancholy ruins. The public spirit, which raised, will, I doubt 
not, speedily restore those walls, and infuse new energy into an 
institution, justly ranked among the most respectable in the country, 
an honor to this town and to the State, and a public benefit to 
the West. Indeed, in the early care, which in this and some of 
the neighboring States, has been had for the establishment of places 
of education, though much is naturally still to be done, I recognize 
the spirit which animated the pilgrim fathers of New-England, 
(never to be mentioned by their descendants without praise,) in the 
same cause. You have had your Morrison, as we had our Harvard. 
As a community, you have already given pledges, that you are 
determined your posterity shall have cause to bless your memory, 
as we have to bless the memory of our ancestors. Let but the 
foundations be deeply laid in a liberal public and private patronage, 
and the intellectual edifice, — the solid fabric of an enlightened 
community, — will stand firm, though the brick and the marble 
may, for a time, sink beneath the devouring flames, and the scien- 
tific treasures they contained, be reduced to dust and ashes. 

There is one association recalled to my mind, in visiting this 
place, to which it would be unpardonable, were I insensible ; an 



1 92 El EHETT'S OB LTIONS. 

association, which has perpetuated, in the name of your city, thai 
of an ever memorable village in the count) I inhabit, and in the 
near neighborhood of m) residence. Winn the news of the bat- 
tle of Lexington, on the 1 9th of April, 1775, reached a part) of 
hunters, assembled al the spring in this place the) resolved, in 
prophetic commemoration of that event, to give the name of Lex- 
ington to the place of their encampment, and the tow n that should 
there be founded. Not more than fift) years, I believe, have 
I awa) . since the actual la) ing oul of this town ; and in that 
period, what a monument have nol you and pour fathers reared to 
the brave and good men, who. at thai doubtful crisis of the coun- 
try's fate, on the morn of her independence, offered up theii lives 
in her sacred cause ! They were not of your kindred, except in 
the kindred of struggling liberty, and by the blood which they shed 
for your freedom, as for their own. They lie in their humble 
graves, in the beautiful village where they fell : and a simple stone 
mark- the -erne of their costly sacrifice : bul how worthily, in the 
remote West, has their pious sell-devotion been commemorated, in 
the ample streets, the sightly dwellings, the substantia] public 
edifices, in the charitable, the literary, the religious foundations of 
l hi.- important tow n ! 

The day of our present meeting carries us hack, b) a natural 
and mosl interesting coincidence, to the same eventful period, to the 
hattle Gelds, which have rendered so man)- portions of the Atlantic 
coasl a classic -oil. and to those historical recollections, which are a 

rich portion of the moral treasures of United America, [t is the 17th 
ol June. On thai day, fifty-four years ago, the heights of Charles- 
town, the place of m) residence, were the scene of that threat and 
costly sacrifice to the cause of American Liberty. The precious 
blood there shed, (lowed not alone for the ancient colonic-, b) 
whom the revolutionary war was fought, bul for you also, their 
hopeful offspring. Oh, thai the brave and devoted spirits, who 
there offered up their lives, could have caughl a glimpse, in their 
dying moment-, of the prosperit) they were achieving for regions 
then beyond the line of Vmerican colonization, and for the mil- 
lions, that are springing up in the might) West. Oh, that the) 

could have anticipated, in the last agony, the tribute of -latitude. 

which beams in your glistening eyes! 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 193 

But little more than half a century has elapsed since that mo- 
mentous event, and meantime, in the astonishing progress of our 
country, this State, then an almost pathless wilderness, half explor- 
ed, untilled, or tilled only by the bold hunter, who went to the 
field with a spade in one hand and a rifle in the other, has become 

itself the parent of other rising States. Beyond the Wabash, 

beyond the Mississippi, — there are now large communities, who 
look to these their native fields, with the same feelings, with which 
your fathers looked back to their native homes in Virginia. I have 
myself, within a week or two, heard an individual, who had been 
to explore for himself a new home in Illinois, and was on his return 
to take out his family to the chosen spot, even while commending 
the abundance and fertility of the vast prairies in that region, check 
himself, as we were passing by some of the prosperous settlements, 
the comfortable houses, the rich corn-fields, the pleasant meadows, 
the beautiful woodland pastures of his native State, and exclaim, 
' after all, there is nothing on God's earth like old Kentucky ! ' 

And thus, gentlemen, it is, that civilization, improvement, and 
our republican institutions of government are making their auspi- 
cious progress from region to region, throughout the continent, 
founded on the happiest conception of political wisdom, and con- 
firmed by the dear ties of nature and kindred. The rapid growth 
of the country has brought into unusual association those opposite 
feelings and relations, which belong respectively to ancient and 
modern States, and were never before combined in one. And the 
torch of enlightened liberty, originally kindled at the altars of 
Jamestown and Plymouth, and long ago transmitted across the 
mountains, is still travelling onward and onward, through the wide 
West. It requires no great stretch of the imagination, to trace its 
auspicious path to regions yet lying in the untenanted solitude of 
nature ; nor to apply to it, with still happier augury, the beautiful 
language, by which the poet has described the revival of freedom, 
among the nations of the elder world : — 

I saw the expecting regions stand, 

To catch the coining flame in turn; 
I saw, from ready hand to hand, 

The bright but struggling glory burn. 

24 



I'.iJ EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

Ami each, u she received the flamo, 
Lighted her altai with it s ray; 

'1'ln'ii, smiling, tci the nr\t wlio came, 
Bpeeded it on its sparkling way. 

But, Mr President, 1 must check myself, on this delightful 
theme, and spare your patience. Allow me, in sitting down, to 
renew my thanks to this respectable company, for their friendl) 
and hospitable attentions, and to propose the following senti- 
ment : — 

The Eastern *m> Western States: — Onf. in- origin, one 

in INTEREST : — UNITED IN GOVERNMENT, MAY THET BE STILL MORE 
i Mill- i;\ MUTUAL GOOD WILL. 



SPEECH 



delivered at a public dinner, at the yellow springs, in 
ohio, 29th june, 18*29. 



Mr Chairman, 

Permit me to thank you and this respectable company, for 
the sentiment just announced ; although I find it difficult to do so 
in any suitable terms. It is known to most of the company, that 
I arrived here two or three hours since, with my worthy friend, 
your fellow citizen, (Mr Fales, of Dayton,) with no other antici- 
pation, than that of enjoying the natural beauties of this lovely 
spot, where every thing seems combined, that can delight the eye, 
afford recreation, and promote health. To meet, in addition to the 
gratification of a visit to so agreeable a retreat, the kind and unex- 
pected welcome of such a company, inspires me, I need not say, 
with emotions, which I had better leave to your indulgence to 
imagine, than attempt to express. Allow me, therefore, to pass 
from a topic so unimportant as my private feelings, and dwell a few 
moments on those views, which present themselves to the mind of 
the stranger, in visiting your prosperous State. 

My first distinct impressions relative to this State were formed 
some thirteen years ago, in the interior of the continent of Europe, 
from a work which had then just been published by your distin- 
guished fellow citizen, Dr Drake, — The Picture of Cincinnati. 
Having, at that time, an opportunity, through the pages of one of 
the literary journals of Germany, to call the attention of the read- 
ing public in that quarter, to the wonderful progress you had made 



I '.l(i l.v BBETT'S ORATIONS. 

and were making, as set forth in the work alluded to, I found the 
accounl to be received almost with incredulity. Nor was this 
wonderful. I remember to have passed eighteen months in that 
countr) . traversing it, to a considerable extent, in several directions, 
before I had seen one nevi house, in progress of erection. With 
such a state of things about them, (the consi quence of the disas- 
trous political condition of Europe,) you can easily conceive, that 
they found it difficult to credit the statement, when thej were told 
thai ( )lii<> contained in L787 no1 a single white settlement, in I "'.mi 
three thousand inhabitants, in L 800 forty-two thousand, in l-lo 
two hundred and thirty thousand, and in L815 a1 leasl four hun- 
dred thousand; and thai this was nol merely the overpouring of 
the whole redundant population of the old States, into one favorite 
resort of emigration : hut thai half a dozen other new States had 
In t n growing up. with nearly equal rapidity, at the same time, 
while the old States also had been steadily on the increase. It is 
nol surprising, thai such facts, told to a community, whose popula- 
tion is nearly stationary, should scarcely gain credence. 

Such was the impression produced by the condition of your State 
in |-|.">. The next time my attention was more particularly called 
to the subject, was about two years since, by another interesting 
work, the well-known pamphlet, entitled 'Cincinnati in L826, 3 in 
which some general views are tuven of the progress of Ohio. 
From this it appeared, that in the interval between the two publi- 
cations, new wonders of advancement had been made; and farther 
strides had been taken, astonishing even to the eye, familiarized to 
the improvements by which you are surrounded. In this short 
period, regular communications by stagecoaches had been estab- 
lished; the National Road had entered your limits ; your rivers had 
ne thronged with steamboats; and your population had 
doubled. I>ut your progress did nol stop at this period. On the 
contrary, it now received perhaps, its most powerful stiiniiln-. 

if our canal policy, — the glorj and prosperity of the Stale. — had 
Im. ii d( termined upon, and a commencement made in its vigorous 
tion. In the latest publications relative to your State, par- 
ticular!) in '77m Geography and thi History of thi Valley of thi 

M ill farther and -till inure rapid progress produced 

hv thi- in w stimulus is indicated. IJiu i ven this does not brine it 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 



197 



down to the present hour. On the points, where the system of 
communication is complete, the effect has been magical. The 
population of Cincinnati, by accurate estimate, has risen since 1825 
from sixteen to twenty-five thousand ; and, as I have been informed, 
on the best authority, an increase in the value of its real property 
has taken place, equal to the whole expense of the Miami canal. 
But no book can describe your State, farther down than to the mo- 
ment when it is written. Its condition changes, while the geogra- 
pher is casting up the figures that represent it. As well might you, 
by the theoretical rules of navigation, attempt to designate the 
position of a steamboat on the Ohio, when it is swollen by the 
floods of spring. While you are fixing your quadrant, the boat is 
swept downwards for miles on the bosom of the rushing stream. 

These and similar facts, sir, would the less merit frequent repeti- 
tion were the rapid progress of the country occasioned merely by 
the abundance of fertile land, operating as a temptation to the ad- 
venturer in search of fortune. But when we contrast the progress 
of the Western States of our Union, with that of the British pos- 
sessions in their immediate neighborhood, we see that other causes 
have been at work, to produce this unparalleled state of things. It 
is well known, that the British Government has held out very 
strong temptations to persons disposed to emigrate to its North 
American possessions. The expense of crossing the ocean has 
been defrayed, grants of land have been made, freedom from taxes 
guarantied, and implements of husbandry furnished, (if we are not 
misinformed,) at the public expense. Some portion of the land 
itself, in those possessions, for natural fertility, climate, and geogra- 
phical position is equal to any part of the Western States. But 
while some of those States have been adding to their numbers from 
thirty to one hundred thousand inhabitants yearly, it has been pub- 
licly stated, of late, by an inhabitant of Upper Canada, that the 
increase of that province, emigration included, has not for ten years 
exceeded four thousand five hundred per annum. 

We learn, from this contrast, that the growth of your western 
country is not merely the progress of its citizens in numerical mul- 
tiplication. It is civilization personified and embodied, going forth 
to take possession ot the land. It is the principle of our institu- 
tions, advancing not so much with the toilsome movement of human 



I 98 i \ CBETT*G OB LTIONS. 

agency, bul rather like the grand operations <>i" sovereign Provi- 
dence. Ii seems urged along its stupendous course, as the earth 
itself i- propelled in its orbit, silent and calm, like the moving 
planet, with a -peed wecannol measure; yel nol like that, without 
a monumem to mark it- way through the vacanl regions of space, 
bul scattering hamlets, and villages, and cities on its path. — the 
abodes oi ci\ ilized am! prosperous millions. 

T ties of interest, w hich connect all the States of this I Won, 
are innumerable; and those of mutual -nod will arc destined, I 
trust, in add all their strength to the compact. It ought to he the 
desire and the effort <>f ever) true patriot, to merge, in one com- 
prehensive feeling, all discordant sectional preferences. Hut the 

circumstances of fir-t settlement and 'geographical proximity will 
produce associations, not inconsistent with the one great principle 
of union, and resting on a basis too natural to he discredited. It 
cannol he expected, that New-England and the .Middle States 
should not feel eoin|ilaeenr_v . in reflecting, that the foundations of 
Ohio were laid b) some of their citizens; that the germs of your 
growth were derived from our soil. Acknowledging the high traits 
oi character, to he found in the various strongly marked sections of 
the country, we cannot he insensible to the prevailing affinity be- 
tween your population and ours. In the leading characteristics of 
society here, we recognize the qualities to which we have been 
familiarized at home. While we witness your auspicious pro 
we take pride iii reflecting, thai it i> the extension of our own 
immediate kindred: the ripening of a fruit, which our fathers 
planted. 

N is this similarity confined to tilings of a superficial nature. 
belonging rather to the province of manners than institutions. In 
man) concerns of highest moment, and particularly in the system 
of public schools commenced in Ohio, we behold an assurance, that 
your vasl community is destined to -row up into a still nearer re- 
semblance of what we deem the besl l", aturo of ours. Regarding 
iml of the citizens as the most precious part of the public 

capital, we have felt, that an efficient plan of general education is 

one of the fir t elements of public wealth. The diffusion of intel- 

e has furnished us our best compensation for our narrow limits 

and it il : and the tax whi< h has efteel d it. has 



EVERETT S ORATIONS. 199 

returned with the richest interest to the citizens. We rejoice to see 
you adopting the same policy, and providing for a posterity, in- 
structed in the necessary branches of useful knowledge. Such a 
policy, besides all its other benefits, binds the different members of 
the body politic by the strongest ties. It lays the rich under con- 
tribution, for the education of the poor ; and it places the strong 
watchman of public intelligence and order at the door of the rich. 
In the first adoption of such a system, difficulties are to be expect- 
ed ; it cannot go equally well into operation in every quarter ; 
perhaps not perfectly in any quarter. But the man, or the body 
of men, that shall effectually introduce it, will perform a work of 
public utility, of which the blessing and the praise will never die. 

It has been frequently remarked that our beloved country is set 
up by Providence, as a great exemplar to the world, from which the 
most enlightened and best governed of the ancient nations have 
much to learn. When we think how recently our continent itself 
was discovered, that almost ever since it has been subjected to for- 
eign rule, and left unshielded, to receive every impression that could 
be stamped on it by foreign ascendency, we must feel that is extra- 
ordinary that we have been able to constitute ourselves an acknowl- 
edged subject of envy and imitation, to all the communities on earth. 
But when we of the old States turn our attention to the spectacle 
beneath our eyes at home, we are astonished to find, that our com- 
paratively ancient commonwealths, monitors as we deemed them in 
the great school of improvement, are obliged to come in turn, 
and take a most important lesson from you. In your great works of 
internal improvement, — in the two canals, one of which you have 
completed and the other of which you are pushing to its comple- 
tion, at large public expense and under circumstances requiring no 
ordinary measure of legislative courage, — you are setting an example 
to the oldest states of the confederacy. Forty years since, and the 
only white population, connected with Ohio, was on its way, in a 
single wagon, from Massachusetts to this place.* You have now a 

* The reference is to an incident, alluded to, in the following manner, in a speech of 
the author, at the celebration of the Second Centennial Anniversary of the settlement 
of Salem, 18th September, 1828:— 

" But, sir, while on this happy occasion we contemplate, with mingled feelings of 



300 i \ i RETT'S ni; LTIONS. 

system of artificial navigation of nearl) four hundred miles rapidly 
advancing to its completion ; while the Massachusetts rail road is 
still locked up in the port folio of the commissioners, who have 
surveyed the route. It is however, one of the bappj effects of our 
separation into different State-, that it gives scope for a generous emu- 
lation, m objects of public utility . It is hardlj to be believed, thai the 
ancient settlements on the coast will consent to be long behind the 
younger State- of the Wesl in the march of improvement ; or fearful, 
with their abundant capital, to commence those great public enter- 
prises, which have not been found beyond the reach of your infant 
resources. Happy the region where such are the objects of compe- 
tition between neighboring States ! 

pride and joy, the lovely and augosl form of our America, rising aa it were, from 
i he- waves of the ocean, with the grace of youth in all her steps, and the heaven of 
liberty in her ej e, there is another aspect, under w hich w e are led l>\ natural associ- 
ation to regard her, as we consider the family of republics which have sprung into 
being beyond 1 1 » • - mountains. The graceful and lovelj daughter has become the 
mother of rising States. While our thoughts, on this day, are carried back to the 
tombs of our fathers beyond the Bea, there are millions of kindred Americans bej ond 
the n\ >-r- ami mountains, whose hearts arc fixed on the Atlantic coast, as the cradle 
of their political existence. It' the States of the coast were struck from existence, 
thej would ahead} have performed tlu-ir share of the greal duty, as it has been 
called, of social transmission. \ might] wilderness has been colonized, almost 
within our own day, bj the young men of the Atlantic coast; nol driven by the 
arm of persecution from the land of tlu-ir birth, but parting, with tearful eyes, from 
their pleasanl homes, to follow the guiding hand of Providence to the \\ 
realms of promise. 

I nsl forty y< amer, since b long, ark-like looking wagon was seen 

ag the roads ami winding through the villages of Esses and Middlesex, cov- 
ered with black canvass, inscribed on the outside, in large letters, 'To Marietta on 
the Ohio.' That expedition under Dr Cutler of this neighborhood, was the first 
germ of the settlement of < mio, which now contains near a million of inhabitants. 
Torts •• • i tree passed by, since this greal State, with all its settlements, im- 

provements, its might] canals and growing population, was covered op, (it' I may 
under the canvass of Dr Cutler's wagon. Nol a half century, and a State 
i- in existence, t tw ice a- lari_'o a- our old Massachusetts, ) to w bom nut < >ld England 
but Ni l ngland, is the land of ancestral recollection. Yes, sir, on richer soils 
and broader plains than ours, there i- a large community of nun. to w horn our rocks 

and our -and- w ill he forever dear. Ten \ ear- ago, there w ere thirteen or fourteen 

■ettlemi I 'he Mleghanies, bearing the name <.(' Salem, the chj of | 

one it' i Indiana, < ght or nine in ( mio, all hearing the na f the 

rhere we are now assembled, — where the fathers of Massachusetts first sel 
foot, two hundred 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 201 

Permit me in conclusion, gentlemen, to revert to the idea, with 
which I commenced, — the astonishing and marvellous progress of 
the West. The settlement of Ohio and the other North-Western 
States, may be considered as dating from the Ordinance of 1787. 
The individual, who drew that ever memorable statute is still living, 
a most respected citizen and eminent jurist of Massachusetts, 
Nathan Dane. Of those also, who first emigrated to this region, 
and encountered the hardships of the wilderness, and the perils of 
the savage foe, all have not passed away. What events have been 
crowded into the lives of such men ! It is only when we consider 
what they found the country, and what they handed it down to this 
generation, that we learn the efficacy of public and private virtue, 
— of wise counsel, — of simple manners, — a firm purpose, — and an 
inborn love of liberty ! But I forbear, sir, to enlarge on consider- 
ations so familiar to this respected company, and only ask permis- 
sion to propose to its acceptance, the following sentiment : — 

The State of Ohio : — Founded by the virtues of the 
last generation, sustained by the public spirit of this, 
its prosperity is sure. 

25 



A 1) D r i: s s 

DELIVERED BEFORE THE CHARLESTOWJi LYCEUM, ON rin: -J-rii 
OK .11 M:. I -ol>. Till: ANNIVERSARY OF THE ARRIVAL OF <.o\- 
BRNOB WINTHROP. 



This day completes the second century, since Governor Win- 
throp explored the banks of the Mystic River. From his arrival 
at Charlestown, accompanied l>y a large number of settler's, furnish- 
ed with a supply of every thing necessary for the foundation of 
the colon}-, and especially, bringing with them the Colonial Char- 
ier, may, with greal propriety, be dated the foundation of Massa- 
chusetts, and in it, thai of New-England. There are other inter- 
esting event-, in OUT early history, which have, in like manner. 
been justly commemorated, for their connexion with the same great 
era. The landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, has been regarded, 
from the first, as a period, from which we may with propriety, 
compute the settlement of New-England ; and has been celebrated, 
with every demonstration of pious and grateful respect. The com- 
pletion of the second century, from the arrival of Governor Ende- 
cotl at Salem, was noticed two years since, by our fellow citizens 
of that place, in a manner worthy of' the interest and magnitude 
of the event : and the anniversary of the commencement of the 
settlement of Boston, is reserved for a like celebration, in the 
autumn of the present \ ear. 

Wen these cell brations a matter of mere ceremonial observance, 
their multiplication would lie idle and oppressive. But they are 
all consecrated to events of real interest. The) have a tendenc) 
to extend the knowledge of the earl) historj of the country. 
The) are just tributes to the memorj of worth) men. to whom we 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 203 

are under everlasting obligations. They furnish fit occasions for 
inculcating the great principles which led to the settlement of our 
happy country ; and by connecting some interesting associations 
with the spots familiar to us, by daily visitation, they remind us 
that there is something worthy to be commemorated, in the soil 
which we inhabit ; and thus furnish food for an enlightened patriot- 
ism. The genius of our institutions has made this the chief means 
of perpetuating, by sensible memorials, the fame of excellent men 
and great achievements. Wisely discarding those establishments, 
which have connected with hereditary possessions in the soil, and 
transmissible dignities in the State, the name and family of discov- 
erers and conquerors, it has been, with us, left to the affection and 
patriotism, by which the observance of these occasions is prompted, 
to preserve the worth of our forefathers from forgetfulness. 

For these considerations, it was thought expedient by the mem- 
bers of the Charlestown Lyceum, that the arrival of Governor 
Winthrop on our shores, with the charter of the colony, should not 
pass unnoticed. When I was first requested to deliver an address 
on the occasion, it was my expectation, that it would be done with 
no greater publicity, than that with which the lectures before this 
institution have been usually delivered. The event, however, has 
been considered as of sufficient importance to receive a more pub- 
lic notice ; and in this opinion of the members of the Charlestown 
Lyceum and our fellow citizens who unite with them, I have 
cheerfully acquiesced. It will not, however, be expected of me, 
wholly to abandon the form which my address, in its origin, was 
intended to assume, although less adapted than I could wish, to 
the character of this vast audience, before which I have the honor 
to appear. 

In performing the duty which devolves upon me in consequence 
of this arrangement, I propose briefly to narrate the history of the 
event which we celebrate, and then to dwell on some of the gen- 
eral topics, which belong to the clay and the occasion. 

When America was discovered, the great and interesting ques- 
tions presented themselves, what right had the European discover- 
ers in the new found continent, and in what way were its settlement 
and colonization to proceed. 



-Jill I \ KUKTT'S OKAT1UNS. 

The first discover} was made, under the auspices of European 
goverDments, which admitted tin* ri L_ r l it of the Head of the Cath- 
olic Church to dispose of all the kingdoms of the earth; and of 
course, of all aewlj discovered regions, which bad not before been 
appropriated. This right of the Head of the Catholic Church 
was recognized b) Protestant princes, only so far as it might be 
backed by that of actual discovery; — and although the Kings of 
Spain and Portugal had received from the Pope a distributive grant 
i)t" all thf newl) discovered countries on the globe, the sovereign of 
England claimed the right of making his own discoveries, and ap- 
propriating them as be pleased, to the benefit of his own subjects 
and government. Under this claim, and in consequence of the 
discoveries of Cabot, our mother country invested herself with this 
greal and ultimate riidit of disposing of the American continent, 
from the gulf of Mexico, northwardly, till it reached the limits 
covered h\ the like (lain 1 of actual discovery, on the part of Other 
go* ernments.* 

It is not my intention to enter into the discussion of the nature 
and extent of this ri^ht of discovery. If we admit, that it was the 
will of Providence, and for the interest of humanity, that America 
should be settled by a civilized race of men, we admit, at the same 
time, a perfect right, in some way or other, to effect that settle- 
mint. And though it may he out of our power to remove all the 

difficulties which attend the question, — although we cannot per- 
haps, On the received principles of natural law, theoretically recon- 
cile the previous rights of the aboriginal population with the 
accruing rights of the discoverers and settlers, vet we must either 
allow that those rights are not, upon the whole, irreconcilable, or, 
we must maintain that it was the will of Providence, and for the 
greatest good of mankind, thai \merica should remain in the con- 
dition in which the discoverers found it. 

No judicious person, at the present day. will maintain this : and 

no such opinion was entertained bj the governments of Europe, 
nor bj the enterprising, patriotic, and liberal nun. on whom il 

• Opinion of the Supreme Coral of the United Statee, is the can of Johnson & 

< ir.ili .11 I kfclntoah; 8th Vi hi 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 205 

devolved to deal practically with this great subject. How great it 
was, — it is true, — they did not feel ; as we, with a like subject 
thrown practically into our hands, — I mean the settlement of our 
own vacant public domain, are equally insensible to its importance. 
Although there is a great lodgment of civilized men on this conti- 
nent, which is rapidly extending itself, yet there is still a vast region 
wholly unsettled, and presenting very nearly the same aspect to us, 
which the whole North American continent did to our forefathers, 
in Great Britain. But no man, I think, who analyzes either the 
popular sentiment of this community, or the legislative policy of 
this government, will deny, that the duty to be performed by the 
people of this generation, in settling these unsettled regions of our 
country, has scarce ever presented itself in its magnitude, gran- 
deur, and solemnity, to the minds either of people or of rulers. It 
was justly remarked, more than once this winter, in the great 
debate in the Senate of the United States, nominally on the sub- 
ject of the public domain, that this subject was the only one not 
glanced at in the discussion ; and that subject, I may say without 
fear of contradiction, is as important to the people of the United 
States, and to the cause of liberty throughout the world, as the 
question of colonizing America, which presented itself to the 
nations and governments of Europe, in the fifteenth and sixteenth 
centuries. 

These questions are never comprehended, till it is too late. 
Experience alone unfolds their magnitude. We may strain our 
minds to grasp them, but they are beyond our power. There is 
no political calculus, which can deal with the vast elements of a 
nation's growth. Providence, or destiny, or the order of things, 
in which, while we think ourselves the agents, we are humble 
instruments, — aided by some high impulses from the minds and 
hearts of wise and great men, catching a prophetic glimpse of the 
future fortunes of our race, — these decide the progress of nations ; 
and educe consequences the most stupendous, from causes seem- 
ingly least proportionate to the effect. 

But, though we do not find any traces in the public sentiment, 
or in the legislation of Europe, in the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries, of an accurate foresight of the great work which that age 
was called upon to perform, yet there was unquestionably a dis- 



20G i:\ i:iu:rr-- ORATIONS. 

liiict perception, that the enclosure of the civilized families of the 
earth had been suddenly enlarged. Spain and Portugal poured 
themselves forth impetuously into the new found region : and Greal 
Britain, though w ith something of a constitutional tardiness, followed 
the example. 

The in'-i British patents, for the settlement of the discoveries on 
the North American continent, were those of Sir Humphrey Gil- 
bert and Sir Walter Raleigh, in the latter quarter of the sixteenth 
century. These and some similar grants v. ere vacated, from inabil- 

il\ to fulfil their conditions ; or from oilier causes, failed to take 

permanent effect. When Queen Elizabeth died in li>o:{. not a 
European family was known to exist on the continent of America, 

north of the gulf of Mexico. On the tenth of April, L606, King 

James granted a patent, dividing that portion of .North America, 
which lies between the thirty-fourth and forty-fifth degrees of lati- 
tude, into two nearly equal districts. The southern, called the first 
colony, he granted to the London Company. The northern, called 
econd colony, he granted to the Plymouth Company, and 
allotted it a- a place of settlement, to several knights, gentlemen, 
and merchants of Bristol, Plymouth, and other part- of the west 
of England. This patent conveyed a -rant of the property of the 
land along the coast fir fifty miles, on each side from the place of 
their first habitation, and extending one hundred miles into the 

interior. 

Under these charters, various attempt- at colonization and settle- 
ment were made, and at first, with very doubtful success, by the 
Virginia Company. These, of course, it is no part of our presenl 
business to pursue. In L614, the adventurous Captain Smith, 
famous in hi- connexion with the settlement of Virginia, was -em 
out by lour individual- in England, who were disposed to engage 
in an enterprise on these distant shore-, to explore the coast ol 
Virginia, lie arrived on the coast of Maine at the e\\<\ ol 
April, 161 I, and in the course of the following summer, he visited 
Vorth Eastern shores of Sjnerica, from the Penobscot river to 
( Jape ( Jod ; entered and examined the rivers, survej ed the countrj . 
and carried on a trade with the natives. Having, on hi- return to 
England, constructed from his surveys a map ol the country, it 
was submitted to Prince Charles, who gave the name ol N<w- 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 207 

England to the region explored by Smith, and bestowed his own 
name on what was then supposed to be its principal river. The 
season in which Captain Smith visited the country, is that in which 
it appears in its greatest beauty. His account of it was such as to 
excite the attention and kindle the imagination of men in England, 
and the profitable returns of his voyage united with these impres- 
sions to strengthen the disposition which was felt, to colonize the 
newly explored region. Several attempts were accordingly made, 
to carry this design into effect, for the benefit and under the auspi- 
ces of the Plymouth Company, but all without success. The 
great enterprise was reserved to be accomplished by a very differ- 
ent instrumentality. 

In 1617, the church of Mr Robinson at Leyden, had come to 
the resolution of exiling themselves to the American wilderness. 
As the principal attempts at settlement had been made in the 
Southern colony or Virginia, their thoughts were turned to that 
quarter, and they sent two of their number to London, to negotiate 
with the Virginia Company on the terms of their settlement ; and 
to ascertain whether liberty of conscience would be granted them, 
in the new country. The Virginia Company was disposed to 
grant them a patent, with as ample privileges as it was in their 
power to convey. The king, however, could not be induced to 
patronize the design, and promised only a connivance in it, so long 
as they demeaned themselves peaceably. In 1619, the arrange- 
ment was finally made with the Virginia Company ; and in the 
following year, the ever-memorable emigration to Plymouth took 
place. In consequence of the treacherous and secret interference 
of the Dutch, who had their own designs upon that part of the 
coast which had been explored by Hudson, the captain of the ves- 
sel which transported the first company to America, conveyed them 
to a place without the limits of the patent of the Virginia compa- 
ny ; and where of course the Pilgrims were set down beyond the 
protection of any grant and the pale of any law. In three or four 
years a patent was obtained of the Plymouth Company, and on this 
sole basis, the first New-England settlement rested, till its incorpo- 
ration with the colony of Massachusetts Bay. 

In the year 1620, the old patent of the Plymouth Company was 
revoked, and a new one was granted to some of the highest nobility 



208 KVKKKTT'- ou\TIO\S. 

ami gentry of England, and their associates, constituting them 
and their successors, 'the council established al Plymouth, in the 
Count) oi Devon, for the planting, ruling, ordering and governing 
(.f New-England in America. 9 I>\ this patent, thai part of 
America, which lies between the fortieth and forty-eighth degree - 
of north latitude in breadth, and in length In all the breadth 
aforesaid, throughoul the main, from sea to sea, was given to them, 
in absolute property. Civil and jurisdictional powers, like those 
which had been granted by the Virginia patent, were conferred on 
the council established by this charter: on which as, on a basis, 

rested all the subsequenl patents and grants of this portion of the 

country. By this grant,a considerable part of the British colonii - 
in North America ; the whole of the New-England States, and of 
\< u Fork; about half of Pennsylvania; two thirds of New 
Jersey and Ohio; a half of Indiana and Illinois, the whole of 
Michigan, Huron, and the territory of the United States westward 
of them, and on both sides of the Rock) mountains, and from a 
point considerably within the Mexican dominions on the Pacific 
Ocean, nearlj up to Nootka Sound, were liberally -ranted by kin'_ r 
J 3, 'to the council established at Plymouth, in the Count] of 
I )< von.' 

Prom the period of the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, 
the intolerance of the established church in England become daily 
more oppressive. The non-conforming ministers were silenced, 
ejected, imprisoned, and exiled ; and numerous examples of the 
extreme si rigor of the law, were made, both of them and the laity. 

The entire extent, to which these severities were carried, may he 

estimated, from their amount in a single instance, (hi the ira- 
peachmenl of Bishop W n n. it was charged that during two years 

and a half, for which he administered the diocese of .Norwich, fifty 

ministers wen' deprived of their places, for not complying with the 
prescribed ceremonies, and three thousand of the laitj compelL d 

to I. ;:\ e the kingdom. 

These increasing severities, and the necessity, under winch 
conscientious men were Laid, of abandoning their principles or their 
homes, turned the thoughts ol man] persons of consideration and 
property toward a permanenl asylum in New-England. The firsl 
steps were restrained and gradual; but a fe* years witnessed the 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 209 

fulfilment of the design. In 1624, Mr White of Dorchester, in 
England, a celebrated non-conforming minister, induced a number 
of merchants and other gentlemen to attempt another settlement, as 
a refuge for those whose religious principles exposed them to 
oppression at home ; and by their contributions, under a license 
obtained from the Plymouth settlers, an establishment was com- 
menced at Cape Ann. The care of this establishment was the 
following year committed by the proprietors to Mr Roger Conant, 
a person of great worth, who had, however, retired from the 
colony at Plymouth. After a short residence at Cape Ann, Roger 
Conant removed a little further to the westward, and fixed upon 
a place called by the Indians Naumkeag, as a more advantageous 
place of settlement, and as a spot well adapted for the reception 
of those, who were disposed to imitate the example of their breth- 
ren, and seek a refuge from tyranny in the western wilderness. 
The accounts of this place circulated in England, among those 
who were maturing this design ; and Mr Conant, though deserted 
by almost all his brethren, was induced by Mr White to remain at 
Salem, by the promise of procuring a patent and a reinforcement 
of settlers. Accordingly, on the 19th of March, 1628, an agree- 
ment was concluded between the council of Plymouth, and certain 
gentlemen associated in the neighborhood of Dorchester in England, 
under the auspices of Mr White, of that place ; and a patent was 
conveyed to these associates, of all the tract of country, lying 
between three miles north of the Merrimack and three miles south 
of Charles rivers, and extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific 
ocean. These associates were Sir Henry Roswell, Sir John 
Young, Thomas Southcoat, John Humphrey, John Endecott and 
Simon Whetcomb ; and the patent ran to them, their heirs, and 
associates. 

Mr White, in pursuit of his project for establishing a colony for 
the non-conformists, was in communication with persons of that 
description, in different parts of England, and, through his agency, 
the six patentees, whose names I have just mentioned, were brought 
into connexion with several religious persons in London and the 
neighboring country, who* at first associated with them, and after- 
wards purchased out the right of the three first named of the six 
26 



210 i I i hi rr> nKvii. 

patentees. 4 Among these new associates were .John Winthrop, 
I Johnson, and Sir Richard Saltonstall. 

Thus reinforced, the strength of the company was vigorously 
benl upon the establishment of the colony in New England. 'I 

organized themselves, by cJ sing Matthew Cradock, governor of 

the colony, and Thomas Goff, deputj governor, and eighteen 
assistants. By this company, and in the course of the same sum- 
mer of L 628, John Endecott was senl over, with a considerable 
Dumber of planters and servants, to 'establish a plantation at 
Salem, to make waj for settling the colony, and be their agent to 

order all affairs, till the patent* es themselves should come.' Ende- 

cotl sailed from Weymouth on the 20th of June, and hi- firsl letter 
to the company, in London, hear- date L3th September, L628. 

In the same year of L628, the foundation of the town of ( Iharles- 
town was laid, under the patronage of Governor Endecott. hut not. 
I apprehend, by any of the members of his party. As this is a 
matter of some local importance, I shall dwell for a moment upon 

it. It i- well known, that Ralph, William, and Richard Sprague, 

in the course of the summer of 1628, traversed the country, be- 
tween Salem and Charles river, and made a settlement at Charles- 
tow n ; and it is commonly supposed, that as they came from Salem. 

with (io\ i mi lor Endecott' s consent, the} « ere of the company which 
he broughl over.f 

( )n looking, however, into our ancient record-. I find the follow- 
ing remark. After relating the arrival of Endecotl at Salem, the 

record -oe- mi tn say : — ' I ndcr w ho-e w ing, there w ere a leu al-o 

that settle and plant up and down, scattering in -e\ era! place- of the 
Bay; where, though they meet with the dangers, difficulties, and 
wants, attending new plantation- in a solitar) wilderness, so far 
remote from their native country, yet were the) ool Ion- without 

tin' detail in Governor Dudley's most interesting letter, t>> the Count 
Lincoln, of I2tb March 1680, writ tin, as he Bays, ' radely, having yel no table, our 
other room to write in, than bj the fire side, on mj knee, in this aharp winter. 1 — 
Historical Collections, First Series. \"l \lll 

+ • Tin' Bpragues, i who went thither [to Cbariestown,] from Endecott's company 
at Salem.)' — Winthrop 's Journal, Savage's edition, Vol. I. p " ,:; .\'t<-. — And so 
other writ 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 211 

company, for in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and 
twenty-eight, came over from England several people at their own 
charges, and arrived at Salem. After which, people came over 

yearly in great numbers ; in years many hundreds arrived, 

and settled not only in the Massachusetts Bay, but did suddenly 
spread themselves into other colonies also. 

' Among those, who arrived at Salem, at their own charge, were 
Ralph Sprague, with his brethren Richard and William, who, with 
three or four more, by joint consent and approbation of Mr John 
Endecott, governor, did the same summer of Anno 1628, under- 
take a journey from Salem, and travelled the woods, about twelve 
miles, to the westward, and lighted of a place, situate and lying on 
the north bank of Charles river, full of Indians, called Aberginians. 
Their old chief sachem being dead, his eldest son, by the English 
called John Sagamore, was their chief; a man naturally of gentle 
and good disposition, by whose free consent they settled about the 
hill of the same place, by the natives called Mishawum ; where 
they found one English pallisadoed and thatched house, wherein 
lived Thomas Walford, a smith, situate on the south end of the 
westernmost hill of the east field, a little way from Charles river 
side ; and upon surveying, they found it was a neck of land gen- 
erally full of stately timber, as was the main, and the land lying on 
the east side of the river called Mistick river, (from the farm Mr 
Cradock's servants had planted, called Mistick, which this river led 
up into,) indeed, generally all the country round about was an un- 
couth wilderness, full of timber.' 

This passage seems to establish the fact, that the three Spragues, 
the founders of the settlement in this place, were not members of 
Governor Endecott's company, but independent adventurers, who 
came over to Salem, at their own cost. They were persons of 
character, substance, and enterprise ; excellent citizens, generous 
public benefactors ; and the heads of a very large and respectable 
family of descendants. 

The patent from the council of Plymouth gave to the associates 
as good a right to the soil as the council possessed, but no powers 
of government. For this object, the royal charter was necessary. 
An humble petition for such a charter was presented to the king in 
council, and on the 4th of March, 1629, the charter passed the 



212 i:\r.KKT-rs OBAT&ONB. 

seals, confiiming the patent of the council of Plymouth, and 
creating the Governor and Company of die Massachusetts Bay, in 
New-England, a body politic and corporate, in deed, fact, and 
Dame. In this charter, the company were empowered to elect 
forever, out of the freemen of said company, a governor, deputy 
governor, and eighteen assistants annually, on the fourth Wednes- 
day oi Easter term, and to make laws not repugnant to the laws of 
England.* 

At a meeting, or court, as it was called, of this company, held 
at London, on the 30th of April following, a form of government 
was adopted for the colony. By this form of government, the 
direction of affairs was committed to thirteen individuals, to he n -- 
idenl in the colony, one of w bom shall be governor. Mr Endecott 
was, by the same instrument, appointed governor, and six individ- 
uals were named councillors. These seven persons were authorized 
to choose three more, and the remaining two, requisite to make up 
the Dumber of twelve, were to be designated by the old planters, 
as they were called, or persons who had settled in New-England 
previous to the Massachusetts patent: — and whose rights, though 
not provided for bj that instrument, were treated with tenderness 
by the patentees. These magistrates wen' to continue in office 
one year. The mode in which their successors were to lie chosen, 
is not specified h\ this form of government, but was probabh in- 
tended to he the Same, a- that observed in the first election.f 

In tile course of this summer i>\ 1829, six ships, in the service 

of the company, sailed lor the infant colony, carrying with them 

an ample supply of provisions, and three hundred settler-. Mr 

Francis tCgginson, who was named first on the list of tin' council- 
;i by the company, and the other ministers sent out for 
the spiritual instruction ol' the colony, embarked for Naumkeag or 
Salem, in this fleet. 

The position at Salem, not being thoughl adapted to become the 

capital. Mr Thomas Graves, an engineer in the service of the 

company, with about one hundred of the company's servants under 

re, removed t<> this place in the course of the summer "I 

M P \ hi. I. pp. 2 

• II /.ml. \ oL I p. Ml from M m u host Its B {..] 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 213 

1629, where the Spragues and their companions had established 
themselves the year before ; and at this time, from the name of the 
river on which it stands, they called the place Charlestown.* 

Thus far the proceedings of the company were conducted on the 
footing of a trading corporation, organized in England, for the pur- 
pose of carrying on a commercial establishment in a foreign and 
dependent region. Whatever higher motive had been proposed to 
themselves, by the active promoters of the colony, the royal gov- 
ernment of Great Britain, in granting the charter of the company, 
had probably no design to lay the foundation of a new common- 
wealth, established on principles at war with those of the mother 
country. But larger designs were entertained on the part of some 
of the high-minded men, who engaged in the undertaking. The 
civil and ecclesiastical oppression of the times had now reached 
that point of intolerable severity, to which the evils of humanity 
are sometimes permitted to extend, when Providence designs to 
apply to them a great and strange remedy. It was at this time, to 
all appearance, the reluctant but deliberate conviction of the think- 
ing part of the community, — of that great class in society, which 
constitutes the strength of England as of America, — that Old 
England had ceased to be a land for men of moderate private for- 
tunes to live in. Society was tending rapidly to that disastrous 
division of master and dependent, which is fatal to all classes of its 
members. The court was profligate, corrupt, and arbitrary, beyond 
example, — and it remained to be seen, whether the constitution of 
the government contained any check on its power and caprice. In 
the ' Considerations for the Plantation of New-England? drawn 
up a year or two before, by those who took the lead in founding 
the colony of Massachusetts "Bay, it was forcibly stated, < that 
England grew weary of her inhabitants ; insomuch that man, which 
is the most precious of all creatures, was there more vile and base 
than the earth he trod on ; and children and families, (if unwealthy) 
were accounted a burdensome incumbrance, instead of the greatest 
blessinsf.' 



* This event, and that of the arrival of Governor Winthrop, are by a very sin- 
gular anachronism, dated, the one in 1628, and the other in 1629, in our Charles- 
town Records. 



J I 1 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

From such a state of things, and the assurance of a perfect rem- 
cd\ in New-England, for some of the evils which thej suffered, a 
considerable Dumber of persons of great respectability, of good for- 
tune, and of consideration in society, came to the resolution of 
leaving their native land, and laying the foundation of a better 
social system on these remote and uninhabited shores. \ a pre- 
liminary to this, however, they required a total change of the 
footing, nn which the attempts at colonization had hitherto proceeded. 
It fell far short of their purpose, to banish themselves to the new 
world, as the dependent servants of a corporation in London ; and 
thej required, as a previous, condition, that the charter of the col- 
ony, and the seat of its government should be transferred from 
Ix)ndon to America. This was the turning point in the destiny of 
New-England. Doubting the legality of such a step, they took 
the advice of counsel learned in the law, and from them received 
the opinion, that the proposed transfer of the oharterwas legal. 
Against this opinion, there is, at the present day, a pretty general 
consenl of the writers on America, both in England and the Uni- 
ted States; and it 1 1 1 : i \ therefore be deemed presumptuous in me, 
to express an opposite judgment. Hut. though the removal of the 
charter was not probably contemplated, I find in it, no condition 
prescribed, that the meetings of the corporation, or the place of 

deposit of the eh;nier itself, should he in London, or anv other 
particular place. The verj design, lor which the charter was 
granted to the company . implied, of course, the possibility thai a part 
of the freemen that compose it, should reside in New-England, and 
I perceive nothing in the instrument, forbidding them all to reside 
in that part of the king's dominions. 

Those, whose professional advice had been taken on the subject 
of removing the charter, having decided in favor of the legality of 
that measure, its expediency was submitted, at a court of the com- 
pany, held at London, on the 28th of July, 1 < > v? * > ; and on the 
29th of August, after In Bring the reports of two committees, 
to consider the arguments for and against the removal, it was, bj 
nerality of the companj voted, that the patent and govern- 
ment of the company be transferred to New-England. At a sub- 
sequent meeting, held October 20th, 'the court having received 
extraordinar) great commendation of Mr. John Winthrop, both for 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 



21i 



his integrity and sufficiency, as being one very well fitted for the 
place, with a full consent, choose him governor for the ensuing 
year, to begin this day.' On the same day, the deputy governor 
and assistants were chosen, of persons at that time purposing to 
emigrate, some of whom, however, never executed this design. 

John Winthrop was a gentleman of good fortune, and was bom 
at Groton, in the county of Suffolk, on the 12th of January, 1587 * 
and was educated by his father, who was himself eminent for skill 
in the law, to that profession. John Winthrop was so early distin- 
guished for his gravity, intelligence, and learning, that he was 
introduced into the magistracy of his county at the age of eighteen, 
and acquitted himself with great credit, in the discharge of its 
duties. 

His family had, for two generations at least, distinguished itself 
for its attachment to the reformed religion, and John Winthrop was 
of that class of the English church, who thought that the work had 
not all been accomplished, in throwing off their allegiance to Rome. 
I believe we have no account of the circumstances, by which he 
was first led to take an interest in the settlement of New-England, 
nor does his name occur in connexion with the early history of the 
colony, till we find it mentioned among those, who, in 1628, united 
themselves with the Dorchester adventurers. Having been, in 
October 1629, elected governor of the new colony, for such it is 
henceforward to be regarded, he prepared himself to enter on this 
great enterprise, by disposing of his patrimony in England, which 
was valued at a rent of six or seven hundred pounds sterling per 
annum. The feelings with which he addressed himself to the 
noble work may be partly conceived from the nature of the enter- 
prise and the character of the man, and they are more fully set 
forth in his most admirable letters to his wife and son, with which 
the world has lately been favored. 

On the 22d of March, 1629, we find the governor with two of 
his sons, on board a vessel at the Isle of Wight, bound for America, 
with Dudley, the deputy governor, and several of the assistants, 

* Mather says June. I am inclined to think that tins, with numerous other 
errors, which have exposed Mather to severe reprehension, was a misprint arising 
from the circumstance, that his work was printed in London, and consequently not 
corrected by him. 



J It) EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

ami with i large number of emigrants, embarked in ■ Beet which*, 
with the vessels iliat preceded and followed them, the same season, 
amounted in the whole to seventeen Bail, all of which reached 
New-England. 

Prom tin' period, at which Governor Wintbrop set sail for New- 
England, till a short time before his death, he kepi a journal of his 
life from day to day, — which has fortunately been preserved to us, 
partly in the original manuscript, of which a portion was brought 
to light, and for the Bret time published, a few years ago.* The 
voyage of Governor Wintbrop was unattended with any considera- 
ble incident, and on the L2th June* after a passage of tbotri au 
weeks, the vessel in which he sailed, came to anchor off Salem. 
On landing, thej found the colony there in a disheartening condi- 
tion, eighty of their number baying died the preceding winter, and 
the survivors looking for support to the supplies expected by the 
governor, which unfortunately did not arrive, in the vessel which 
brought him. 

The intention had been already taken not to establish the seat 
of government at Salem. — Alter lying a few days at anchor off 

that place. ( rOVemOf W intlil'op undertook to explore the Massachu- 
setts Bay, " to find a place for sitting down." On the L7th June, 

old style, he proceeded Dp the Mistick river, as far as the spot, 

which he occupied ;b a countrj residence during his life, and 
which has preserved to the presenl day the name of the Ten Hills, 
gii en to it by him. 

Our records give but a melancholy account of the condition of 
things, which the colonists were called to encounter in their estab- 
lishment at this place. We there read, that 

■The governor and Beveral of the assistants dwell in the great 
house, which was lasl year built in this town, hy Mr (J raves and 
the rest of their servants. The multitude set np cottages, booths, 

and tents ahout the town-hill. They had long passage. Some of 
the ■.hips were ~e\i llleen. Mime eighteen Weeks a COmUIg. Main 

people arrived sick of the scurvy, which also increased much after 
their arrival, for want of houses, and h_\ reason of wet lodgings, in 



Hon. Jam. - .•. ili Leaned unotationa on Ike whole work, now for 

the t"i r - 1 tune published entire, in tv\>> rol 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 217 

their cottages, &c. Other distempers also prevailed, and although 
people were generally very loving and pitiful, yet the sickness did 
so prevail, that the whole were not able to tend the sick as they 
should be tended ; upon which many perished and died, and were 
buried about the town-hill ; — by which means, the provisions were 
exceedingly wasted, and no supplies could now be expected by 
planting : besides, there was miserable damage and spoil of pro- 
visions by sea, and clivers came not so well provided as they would, 
upon a report whilst they were in England, that now there was 
enough in New-England.' 

It was the intention of the governor and the chief part of those who 
accompanied him, to establish themselves permanently in this place, 
and to this end the governor made preparation for building his house 
here. But, as our records proceed, ' the weather being hot, many 
sick, and others faint, after their long voyage, people grew discon- 
tented for want of water, who generally notioned no water good for a 
town but running springs ; and though this neck do abound in good 
water, yet for want of experience and industry, none could then be 
found to suit the humor of that time, but a brackish spring in the 
sands, by the water side, on the west side of the north-west field, 
which could not supply half the necessities of the multitude, at 
which time the death of so many was concluded to be much the 
more occasioned by this want of good water.' 

In consequence of this difficulty, numbers of those who had 
purposed to settle themselves at Charlestown, sought an establish- 
ment at other places, as Watertown and Dorchester, and still more 
removed to the other side of the river, and laid the foundation of 
Boston. 

' In the mean time,' continue our records, ' Mr Blackstone dwell- 
ing on the other side of Charles River alone, at a place by the 
Indians called Shawmut, where he only had a cottage, at or not 
far off the place called Blackstone's Point, he came and acquaint- 
ed the governor of an excellent spring there, withal inviting him 
and soliciting him thither, whereupon, after the death of Mr John- 
son and divers others, the governor, with Mr Wilson, and the 
greatest part of the church, removed thither.' 

Such were the inconveniences and distresses of the first settle- 
ment, which bore so heavily on the health and spirits of the colo- 
27 



"Jl - r \ KHF.TT'S OH LTIONS. 

nists, thai on the return of the vessels which brought them out, 
more than a hundred « enl back to England. 

I>nt the necessary limits of this address will not permil me to 
pursue the narrative, and I can only ask your attention to a lew of 
those reflections, which arc suggested l>\ the occasion. 

What our country is, which has sprung from these beginnings, 
weall set- and know: — it- numbers bordering upon twelve millions, 
if they (Id not exceed it : it- greal abundance in all that compost - 
the wealth and the strength of nations ; its rich possession of the 
means of private happiness; its progress in the useful and refined 
art- of life; it- unequalled enjoymenl of political privileges; it- 
noble provision of literary, social, charitable, and religious estab- 

li-l in-. — constituting, altogether, a condition of prosperity, w hich 

1 think, has never been equalled on earth. What our country was, 
on the day we commemorate, it is difficult to bring distinctly home 
to our minds. There was a feeble colony in Virginia; a very 
small Dutch settlement in New- York; a population of about three 
hundred at Plymouth; about a- many more English inhabitants, 
divided between Salem and Charlestown; a few settlers scattered 
u|) and down the coa-I : and all the rest a vast wilderness, the 
co\ erl of w ild beasts and -a\ a 

In this condition of things, the charter of the colony was brought 
over, and the foundations w ere laid of anev* state, m the motives 
which led to tin- enterprise, there were unquestionably two princi- 
ples united. The first projects of settling on the coast of New- 
England had their origin in commercial adventure; and without 
the direction given l»\ this spirit to the minds of men, and the infor- 
mation brought home bj fishing and trading vessels, the attempt 
would probablj have never been made, to establish a colony. It 

deserves to I"' remarked, therefore, in an age like the present, w hen 

it is too much the practice to measure the value of all public enter- 
prise - by the return- in money which the\ bring hack to their pro- 
jectors, thai probably a more unprofitable speculation in a financial 

than that of the council of Plymouth, was nevei undertaken. 

In a u w years, they gladlj surrendered their patent to the crown. 

and it i- doubtful whether, while they held it the\ divided a far- 
thing's profit Net. under their patent, and l>\ their grant, wa- 

undertaken and accomplished perhaps the greatest work on record 
the annals of humanity. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 219 

Mixed with this motive of commercial speculation, (itself liberal 
and praiseworthy,) was another, the spring of all that it truly great 
in human affairs, the conservative and redeeming principle of our 
natures, I mean the self-denying enthusiasm of our forefathers, 
sacrificing present ease for a great end. I do not mean to say, that 
even they had an accurate foresight of the work, in which they 
were engaged. What an empire was to rise on their humble foun- 
dations, imagination never revealed to them, nor could they, nor 
did they, conceive it. They contemplated an obscure and humble 
colony, safe beneath the toleration of the crown, where they could 
enjoy, what they prized above all earthly things, the liberty of con- 
science, in the worship of God. Stern as they are pourtrayed to 
us, they entertained neither the bitterness of an indignant separation 
from home, nor the pride of an anticipated and triumphant enlarge- 
ment here. Their enthusiasm was rather that of fortitude and 
endurance ; passive and melancholy. Driven though they were 
from their homes, by the oppression of the established church, they 
parted from her as a dutiful child from a severe but venerated pa- 
rent. ' We esteem it our honor,' say they, in their inimitable letter 
from on board the Arbella, ' to call the church of England, from 
which we rise, our dear mother ; and we cannot part from our na- 
tive country, where she specially resideth, without much sadness of 
heart, and many tears in our eyes, ever acknowledging, that such 
hope and part as we have obtained in the common salvation, we 
have received in her bosom, and sucked it from her breasts.' 
And, having, in this same pathetic appeal, invoked the prayers of 
their brethren in England, for their welfare, they add, ' What good- 
ness you shall extend to us, in this or any other christian kindness, 
we, your brethren, shall labor to repay, in what duty we are or 
shall be able to perform ; promising, so far as God shall enable us, 
to give him no rest on your behalf, wishing our heads and hearts 
may be fountains of tears for your everlasting welfare, when we 
shall be in our poor cottages in the wilderness, overshadowed with 
the spirit of supplication, through the manifold necessities and trib- 
ulations, which may not altogether unexpectedly, nor, we hope, 
unprofitably befall us.'* 

* Hutchinson, Vol. I. Appendix, No. 1. 



220 i:\ BRETT'S ORATIONS. 

In the spirit thai dictated these expressions, — the disinterested 
enthusiasm of men, giving up borne, and friends, and their native 
land, for a conscientious principle, — we behold not merely the 
cause ol the success of their enterprise, but the secret source of 
everj great and generous work, especiall) in the founding of social 
institutions, thai was ever performed. One trading company after 
another bad failed ; charters had been given, enlarged, and vaca- 
ted; well appointed fleets had been scattered or returned without 
success, and rich adventures had ended in ruin; when a few 
ved gentlemen, turning their backs on plenty, at home, and 
xitiiiLC their lace- towards want and danger, in the wilderness, took 
up and accomplished the work. 

The esteem, in which we of the presenl daj hold their charac- 
ters, and the sympathy we feel in their trials, are, perhaps, qualified, 
by finding, that this enthusiasm, which inspired them, was almosl 
wholly expended on the concerns of the church, and was associ- 
ated in thai respect, with opinions and feelings, — as we may think, 
— not the most enlarged and liberal. This prejudice, however, 
for such I regard it. ought not to he permitted to establish itself, in 
tin- minds of any generation of die descendants ol' the fathers ol 
V w-England. The spirit tint actuated them was the greal prin- 
ciple ol' di d enthusiasm, — the puresl and best that can 
warm the heart and govern die conduct of man. It look a direc- 
tion tow ard the doctrines and forms of the church, partly, of course, 
because religion is a matter, on which tender and anient minds 
feel, with the greatest sensibility; but mainl) because thej were, 
in that respect, oppressed and aggrieved. It was precisely the 
same spirit, which animated our fathers in the revolution, assuming 
then the form of the passion for civil liberty, and struggling against 
political oppression, because this was the evil which they suffered: 
And it is the same principle, which, in every age, wars against 
tyranny, sympathizes with the oppressed, kindles at the report ol 
generous actions, and. rising above selfish calculation and sensual 
indulgence, teams ' to scorn delights and live laborious days, 1 and 
i- ready, when honor and dnt\ call, to sacrifice property, and i 

and life. 

'There is another tiling, thai must he home in mind, when we 

-it in judgmenl on the character of our fathers. The opinions 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 221 

which men entertain, especially on great social institutions, and the 
duties which grow out of them, depend very much on the degree 
of intelligence prevailing in the world. Great men go beyond 
their age, it is true ; but there are limits to this power of anticipa- 
tion. They go beyond it in some things, but not in all, and not 
often, in any, to the'utmost point of improvement. Lord Bacon 
laid down the principles of a new philosophy, but did not admit 
the Copernican system. Men who have been connected with the 
establishment of great institutions, ought to be judged, by the 
general result of their work. We judge of St Peter's by the 
grandeur of the elevation, and the majesty of the dome, not by 
the flaws in the stone, of which the walls are built. The fathers 
of New-England, a company of private gentlemen, of moderate 
fortunes, bred up under an established church, and an arbitrary and 
hereditary civil government, came over the Atlantic two hundred 
years ago. They were imperfect, they had faults, they committed 
errors. But they laid the fonndations of the state of things, which 
we enjoy ; — of political and religious freedom ; of public and 
private prosperity ; of a great, thriving, well-organized republic. 
What more could they have done ? What more could any men 
do ? Above all, what lesson should we have given them, had we 
been in existence, and called to advise on the subject? Most 
unquestionably we should have discouraged the enterprise alto- 
gether. Our political economists would have said, abandon this 
mad scheme of organizing your own church and state, when you 
can have all the benefit of the venerable establishments of the 
mother country, the fruit of the wisdom of ages, at a vastly less 
cost. The capitalists would have said, do not be so insane, as to 
throw away your broad acres and solid guineas, in so wild a spec- 
ulation. The man of common sense, that dreadful foe of great 
enterprises, would have discredited the whole project. Go to any 
individual of the present day, situated as Governor Winthrop was, 
at his family mansion, at Groton, in England, in the bosom of a 
happy home, surrounded by an affectionate, prosperous family, in 
the enjoyment of an ample fortune, and tell him, inasmuch as the 
government has ordained that the priest should perform a part of 
the sacred service in a white surplice, and make the sign of the 
cross in baptism, that therefore he had better convert his estate 



222 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

into money, and Leave his home and family, and go and settle a 
colony, on one of the islands of the Pacific ocean, or establish 
himself at the mouth of Columbia river, where he would have 
liberty of conscience. 1 think he would recommend to his adviser, 
to go and establish himself, at a certain mansion, which benevo- 
lence has provided, a little to the north of Lechmere's Point. 

I do not say the cases arc wholl) parallel : Bui such would he 
tlic\icw now taken, on the principles which govern men in our 
state of society, of such a course as that which was pursued by 
Governor Winthrop and his associates. 

I deduce from this, not that they were high-minded, and we, base 
and degenerate ; I will not so complimenl the fathers ;ii the ex- 
pense of the sons. On the contrary, let the crisis arrive; let a 
state of things present itself, (hardly conceivable, to be sure, but 
within the range of possibility,) when our beloved New-England 
no longer afforded us the quiet possession of our rights, I believe 
we should then -how ourselves the worthy descendants of the pil- 
grims : and if the earth contained a region, however remote, a 
shore, however barbarous, where we could enjoj the liberty denied 
us al home, that we should say, 'where Liberty i^. there is my 
country/ and go and seek it. Bui let us not meantime, nourished 
as we are out of the abundance which they, need) and suffering 
themselves, transmitted to us. deride their bigotry, which turned 

tiilh- into consequence, or wonder at their zeal, w Inch madl 

sacrifices for -mall inducements. It is ungrateful. 

Nor let us suppose, that it would he too safe to institute a 
comparison, between our fathers and ourselves, even on those 

point-, with regard to which, we have both been called to act. It 
has so happened, that the government of the United States has, in 
the course of the last year, been obliged to consider and act on 

a subject, which was one of the lir-t and ino-t anxiou-. that 

presented itself to the earl} settlers of New-England, — I mean our 
relations with the Indian tribes. In alluding to this subject, I freely 

admit that, in the infancy of the colonic-, when the Indian- wire 

strong and the colonists weak. — when the savage, roaming the 

. with the tomahawk and scalping knife, wa- a toe to the 

\ -England settlements, alike dangi rous and dreadful.— ome 
actions were committed in the settlements, in moments ol excite- 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 223 

ment, which we cannot too deeply condemn, nor too sadly deplore. 
In allusion to these actions, and in vindicating the course, which 
during the past year, has been pursued toward the tribes of civil- 
ized Indians, resident within the United States, it- has been argued, 
that they have not been treated with greater severity, by the 
government of the United States, or of any of the separate States, 
than they were treated by the fathers of New-England. But it 
would seem not enough for an age, which is so liberal of its cen- 
sures of the puritans, to show itself only not more oppressive than 
they. Has civilization made no progress, in two hundred years ? 
Will any statesman maintain, that the relation of our Union, to the 
feeble and dependent tribes, within its limits, is the same, as that of 
the infant colonies, toward the barbarous nations, which surrounded 
them ? It was the opinion of that age, that the royal patents gave 
a perfect right to the soil. We have hitherto professed to believe, 
that nothing can give a perfect right to the soil occupied by the 
Indian tribes, but the free consent of these tribes, expressed by 
public compact, to alienate their right, whatever it be. They 
believed, that heathen nations, as such, might be rightfully dispos- 
sessed, by christian men. We have professed to believe, that this 
would be a very equivocal way of showing our Christianity. And 
yet, notwithstanding these opinions, I do not recollect that, in a 
single instance, our fathers claimed a right to eject the native popu- 
lation. For a long time, they were the weaker party. Among 
the first acts of the Plymouth colony, was an amicable treaty with 
the nearest and most powerful Indian chieftain, who lived and 
died their friend. The colonists of Massachusetts, in a letter of 
instructions,* from the company, of 28th May, 1629, were direct- 
ed to make a reasonable composition with the Indians, who claimed 
lands within their patent. The worthy founders of Charlestown, 
an enterprising handful of men, settled down here, with the free 
consent of the powerful tribe in their neighborhood, whose chief 
remained the friend of the English to the last. — In a word, the 
opinions of our forefathers, on this interesting subject, are expressed, 
by Mr Pinchon, of Springfield, with a discrimination and pointed - 



* Hazard's State Papers, Vol. I. p. 277; to the same effect also a still earlier let- 
ter of instructions. 



224 I'.VK RETT'S ORATIONS. 

ness, almost prophetic of the present contest. 'I grant,' says he, in 
reference to a particular case, 'thai all these Indians* are within the 
line of the patent; but yet, you cannol say thej are your subjects, 

nor _\ct within your jurisdiction, till they have Cully subjected 
themselves, (which 1 know they have cot,) and until you have 
bought their land. Until this be done, they must be esteemed as 
an independent, free people.' 

Contrast these doctrines with those latterly advanced by the 
government, both of the United States and several of the individ- 
ual States: — That the State charters idve a perfect ri'Jit to the 
soil and sovereignty, within their nominal limits, and that the Indi- 
ans have only a righl of occupancy, and that by permission ; that 
the treaties with them, negotiated for fifty years, with all the forms 
of the constitution, bind them as far as the treaties contain cessions 
of land, but do not bind us, when we guaranty the remainder of 
the land to them: — that when the Indians, on the faith of these 
treaties, cry to us for protection against State laws, unconstitution- 
al!) pa— ed. with the known design and to the admitted effect, of 
compelling them to leave their homes, it is within the competence 
if the executive, without consulting the National Legislature, to 
withhold this protection, and advise the Indians as the}' would 
escape destruction, to fly to the distant wilderness : — and all this, 
in the case, not of savage, unreclaimed tribes, such as our forefa- 
thers had to deal with, who lived b) the chase, without permanenl 

habitations, to whom one tract of the forest was as much a home 
as another, but tribes, whom we have trained to civilization, whom 
we have converted to our religion; who live, as we do, by the 
industrious arts of life, and who, in their official papers, written bj 
themselves, plead for their rights, in better English, than that of 
the high officers of the government] who plead against them. 

lint I protesl against bringing the actions of men. in one age, to 
the standard of another, in things thai depend on the state of civi- 
lization and public sentimenl throughout the world. Trj our 
fathers l>v the only fair test, the standard of the age in which they 
lived : and I believe thai they admit a \<t\ good defence, even on 

referred t<> in Wmthrop'i Journal, Savage*' edition, VoL II. 

,, B84 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 225 

the point, where they are supposed to be most vulnerable, — that of 
religious freedom. I do not pretend, that they were governed by 
an enlightened spirit of toleration. Such a spirit, actuating a large 
community, made up of men of one mind, and possessing absolute 
power to compel the few dissenters to conform, is not so common, 
even at the present day, as may be thought. I have great doubts, 
whether the most liberal sect of Christians, now extant, if it con- 
stituted as great a majority as our forefathers did of the community, 
and if it possessed an unlimited civil and ecclesiastical power, 
would be much more magnanimous than they were, in its use. 
They would not, perhaps, use the scourge, or the halter ; humanity 
proscribes them altogether, except for the most dangerous crimes ; 
but that they would allow the order of the community to be dis- 
turbed by the intrusion of opposite opinions, distasteful to themselves, 
I have great doubts. With all the puritanical austerity, and, — 
what is much more to be deplored, — the intolerance of dissent, 
which are chargeable to our fathers, they secured, and we are 
indebted to them for, two great principles, without which all 
the candor and kindness we may express towards opponents, go 
but a short step toward religious freedom. One of these is the 
independent character, which they ascribed to each individual 
church ; the other, the separation of church and state. Our fathers 
were educated under an ecclesiastical system, which combined all 
the churches into one body. They forbore to imitate that system 
here, though the hierarchy of the new churches would have been 
composed of themselves, with John Cotton at its head. They 
were educated in a system, where the church is part of the state, 
and vast endowments are bestowed, in perpetuity, upon it. This, 
too, our fathers could have imitated, securing to themselves while 
they lived, and those who thought with them, when they were 
gone, the usufruct of these endowments, as far as the law could 
work such assurance. They did neither, although they had pur- 
chased the fair right of doing what they pleased, by banishing 
themselves, for that very reason, from the world. They did neither, 
although they lived in an age, when, had they done both, there 
was no one who could rightfully cast reproach upon them. In all 
the wide world, there was not a government, nor a people, that 
could rebuke them, by precept or example. Where was there ? 
23 



226 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

In England, the fires of papacy were hardly quenched, when tyran- 
nies scarcer) less atrocious against the Puritans began. In Prance, 

the Protestants were at the mercy of a capricious and soon revoked 
toleration. The Catholics, in Germany, were unchaining their 
legions againsl the Lutherans; and in Holland, reformed Holland. 
line and imprisonment were the reward of Grotius, the man, in whom 
thai country will be remembered, ages after the German ocean has 
broken over her main dyke. Had our forefathers laid the founda- 
tion of the most ri-id ecclesiastical system, that e\er oppressed the 
world, and locked up a quarter pan of New-England in mortmain, 
to endow it, there was not a community in Christendom to bear 
w itness againsl them. 

If we would, on a broad, rational ground, come to a favorable 
judgment, on the whole, of the merit of our forefathers, the found- 
ers of New-England, we have only to compare what they effected, 
with what was effected by their countrymen and brethren in Great 
Britain. While the fathers of New-England, a small hand of indi- 
viduals, for the most pait of little account in the great world of 
London, were engaged, on this side of the Atlantic, in laying the 
foundations of civil and religious liberty, in a new Commonwealth, 
the patriots in England undertook the same work of reform in that 
country. There were difficulties, no doubt] peculiar to the enter- 
prise, as undertaken in each country. In Great Britain, there was 
the strenuous opposition of the friends of the established system; 
in New-England, there was the difficult) of creating a new State, 
out of materials the mosl scanty and inadequate. If there were 
fewer obstacles here, there were greater means there. Thej had 
all the improvements of the age, which the Puritans are said to 
have left behind them ; all the resources of the country, while the 
Puritans had nothing but their own slender means ; and, at length, 
all the patronage of the government : — and with them the) over- 
threw the church ; trampled the House of Lords underfoot: and 
brought the King to the block, The father- of New-England, 
from firsl t" last, struggled against almost ever) conceivable dis- 
couragement. While the patriots at home w ere dictating conces- 
sions to the kin- and tearing bis confidential friends from his arms, 

the patriot- of America could scare* Ij keep their charter out ol liis 

grasp. While the tinnier were wielding a resolute majority in par- 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 227 

liament, under the lead of the boldest spirits that ever lived, com- 
bining with Scotland, and subduing Ireland, and striking terror into 
the continental governments, the latter were forming a frail union 
of the New-England colonies, for immediate defence, against a 
savage foe. While the ' Lord General Cromwell,' (who seems to 
have picked up this modest title among the spoils of the routed 
aristocracy,) in the superb flattery of Milton, 

' Guided by faith, and matchless fortitude, 
To peace and truth his glorious way had ploughed, 
And on the neck of crowned fortune proud , 
Had reared God's trophies,' 

our truly excellent and incorruptible Winthrop was compelled to 
descend from the chair of state, and submit to an impeachment. 

And what was the comparative success ? — There were, to say 
the least, as many excesses committed in England as in Massachu- 
setts Bay. There was as much intolerance, on the part of men 
just escaped from persecution ; as much bigotry, on the part of 
those, who had themselves suffered for conscience' sake ; as much 
unreasonable austerity ; as much sour temper ; as much bad taste ; 
as much for charity to forgive, and as much for humanity to deplore. 
The temper, in fact, in the two Commonwealths, was much the 
same ; and some of the leading spirits played a part in both. And 
to what effect ? On the other side of the Atlantic, the whole 
experiment ended in a miserable failure. The Commonwealth 
became successively oppressive, hateful, contemptible : a greater 
burden than the despotism, on whose ruins it was raised. The 
people of England, after sacrifices incalculable, of property and 
life, after a struggle of thirty years' duration, allowed the general, 
who happened to have the greatest number of troops at his com- 
mand, to bring back the old system, — King, Lords, and Church, — 
with as little ceremony, as he would employ, in issuing the orders 
of the day. After asking, for thirty years, What is the will of the 
Lord concerning his people ? what is it becoming a pure church to 
do ? what does the cause of liberty demand, in the day of its re- 
generation ? — there was but one cry in England, What does Gen- 
eral Monk think ? what will General Monk do ? will he brino- back 
the king with conditions, or without ? And General Monk con- 
cluded to bring; him back without. 



328 i:\m;r rr- orations. 

On this side ol the Atlantic. ;m<l in about the same period, the 
work which our lathers took in hand was, in the main, -ucce-sfully 
done. They came to found a republican colony : they (bunded it. 
Thej came to establish a free church* They established what 

they called a free church : and transmitted to us. what wo call a 
free church. In accomplishing this, which they did anticipate, they 
brought also to pass what tiny did not so distinctly foresee, what 
could not. in the nature of things, in it-; detail and circumstance, 

he anticipated. — the foundation of a great, prosperous, and growing 
republic. We have not been just to these men. I am disposed 

to do all justice to the lnemorv of each succeeding generation. 1 
admire the indomitable perseverance, with which the contest for 
principle was kept up. under the second charter. I reverence, this 
side idolatry, the wisdom and fortitude of the revolutionary ami 
constitutional leader-, hut I believe we ought to go back beyond 
them all. for the real trainers of the Commonwealth. I believe 
that its foundation stone-, like those of the Capitol of Koine, lie 
deep and -olid, out of sight, at the bottom of the walls. — Cyclo- 
pean work. — the work of the Pilgrims, — with nothing below them 
hut the rock of ages. I will not quarrel with their rough corner-, 
or uneven side-; above all, I will not change them for the wood. 

hav. and -nibble of modern builder-. 

Hut. it i- more than time, fellow citizens, that I should draw to 
;i close. These venerable foundation- of our republic were laid 

on the very spat, where we stand ; by the fathers of Massachusetts. 
Here, before they were able to erect a suitable 'place for worship, 
they wire wont, beneath the branches of a spreading tree, to com- 
mend their wants, their sufferings, and their hopes to Him. that 
dwelleth not in houses made with hand- : here, the] erected their 

first habitations ; here, thej gathered their first church ; here, they 
made their first gr ives. 

\ . . on the very spot where we are assembled : now crowned 
with this spacious church: surrounded by the comfortable abodes 
of a dense population ; there were, during the first season alter the 
landing of VVinthrop, fewer dwellings for the li\inL r . than graves 
for the dead. Il seemed the will of Providence, that our fathers 
I k mil I Im in. d h\ the < ctremities <>l ekfo >n. When the 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 229 

Pilgrims approached the coast of Plymouth, they found it clad 
with all the terrors of a northern winter : — 

The sea around was black with storms, 
And white the shores with snow. 

We can scarcely now think, without tears, of a company of men, 
women, and children, brought up in tenderness, exposed, after sev- 
eral months' uncomfortable confinement on ship-board, to the rigors 
of our November and December sky, on an unknown, barbarous 
coast, whose frightful rocks, even now, strike terror into the heart 
of the returning mariner ; though he knows that the home of his 
childhood awaits him, within their enclosure. 

The Massachusetts Company arrived at the close of June. No 
vineyards, as now, clothed our inhospitable hill-sides ; no blooming 
orchards, as at the present day, wore the livery of Eden, and 
loaded the breeze with sweet odors ; — no rich pastures, nor waving 
crops, stretched beneath the eye, along the way side, from village 
to village, as if Nature had been spreading her halls with a carpet, 
fit to be pressed by the footsteps of her descending God ! The 
beauty and the bloom of the year had passed. The earth, not yet 
subdued by culture, bore upon its untilled bosom nothing but a dis- 
mal forest, that mocked their hunger with rank and unprofitable 
vegetation. The sun was hot in the heavens. The soil was 
parched, and the hand of man had not yet taught its secret springs 
to flow from their fountains. The wasting disease of the heart- 
sick mariner was upon the men ; — and the women and children 
thought of the pleasant homes of England, as they sunk down 
from day to day, and died at last for want of a cup of cold water, 
in this melancholy land of promise. From the time the company 
sailed from England, in April, up to the December following, there 
died not less than two hundred persons, — nearly one a day. 

They were buried, say our records, about the Town-hill. This 
is the Town-hill. We are gathered over the ashes of our fore- 
fathers. 

It is good, but solemn, to be here. We live on holy ground ; 
all our hill-tops are the altars of precious sacrifice : 

This is stored with the sacred dust of the first victims in the 
cause of liberty. 



230 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

And that* is rich from the life stream of the noble hearts, who 
bled to sustain it. 

Here, beneath our feet, unconscious that we commemorate their 
worth, repose the meek and sainted martyrs, whose flesh sunk 
beneath the lofty temper of their coble spirit- ; and there, rest the 
heroes, who presented their dauntless foreheads to the God of bat- 
tleSj when he came to his awful baptism of blood and of fire. 

Happy the line, which has laid them so near to each other, the 
early and the latter champions of the one great cause ! And hap- 
p\ we, who are permitted to reap in peace the fruit of their costlj 
sacrifice! Happy, that we can make our pious pilgrimage to the 
smooth turf of thai venerable summit, once ploughed with the 
wheels of maddening artillery, ringing with all the dreadful voices 
of war, wrapped in smoke, and streaming with blood! Happy, 
that here, where our fathers sank, beneath the burning sun, into 
the parched cla\ .we live, and assemble, and mingle sweet counsel, 
and grateful thoughts of them, in comfort and peace ! 

* Bunker Hill. 



DISCOURSE 

ON THE IMPORTANCE TO PRACTICAL MEN OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWL- 
EDGE, AND ON THE ENCOURAGEMENTS TO ITS PURSUIT * 



The object of the Mechanics' Institute is, to diffuse useful 
knowledge among the mechanic class of the community. It aims, 
in general, to improve and inform the minds of its members ; and 
particularly to illustrate and explain the principles of the various arts 
of life, and render them familiar to that portion of the community, 
who are to exercise these arts as their occupation in society. It is 
also a proper object of the Institute, to point out the connexion 
between the mechanic arts and the other pursuits and occupations, 
and show the foundations, which exist in our very nature, for a cor- 
dial union between them all. 

These objects recommend themselves strongly and obviously to 
general approbation. While the cultivation of the mind, in its 
more general sense, and in connexion with morals, is as important 
to mechanics as to any other class of the community, nothing is 
plainer than that those whose livelihood depends on the skilful practice 
of the arts, ought to be instructed, as far as possible, in the scien- 
tific principles and natural laws, on which the arts are founded. 
This is necessary, in order that the arts themselves should be pur- 
sued to the greatest advantage ; that popular errors should be erad- 

* The following Essay is compiled from a discourse delivered by the author, at 
the opening of the Mechanics' Institute in Boston, in November, 1827; an address 
before the Middlesex County Lyceum, at Concord, in November, 1829; and an 
oration before the Columbian Institute at Washington, January, 1830. 



232 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

bated ; that every accidental improvement in the processes of 
industry, which offers itself, should be readilj taken up and pursued 
to its principle; that false notions, leading to waste of time and 
labor, should be prevented from gaining or retaining currency ; in 
short, that the useful, like the ornamental arts of life, should be 
carried to the point of attainable perfection. 

The history of the progress of the human mind shows us. thai 
for want of a diffusion of scientific knowledge among practical nun. 
great evils have resulted, both to science and practice. Before the 
invention of the art of printing, the means of acquiring and circula- 
ting knowledge were few and ineileeUial. The philosopher was, 
in consequence, exclusively a man of study, who, by living in a 
monastic seclusion, and by delving into the few books which time 
had spared. — particularly the works of Aristotle and his commen- 
tators, — succeeded in mastering the learning of the day ; learning, 
mostly of an abstract and metaphysical nature. Thus, living in a 
world not of practice, but speculation, never bringing his theories 
to the test of observation, his studies assumed a visionary character. 
Hence the projects for the transmutation of metals; a notion not 
ojjginating in any observation of the qualities of the differenl kinds 
of metals, hut in reasoning, (i priori, on their supposed identity of 
substance. So deep rooted was this delusion, that a great part of 
the natural science of the middle ages consisted in projects to con- 
vert the baser metals into gold. It is plain, that such a project 

would no more have been countenanced, by intelligent, well-inform- 
ed persons, practically conversant with the nature of the metals, 
than a project to transmute pine into oak, or fish into flesh. 

In like manner, by giving science whollj up to the philosophers, 
and making the practical arts of life merely a matter qf traditionary 
repetition from one generation to anpther of uninformed artisans, 
much evil of an opposite kind was occasioned. Accident, of course, 
could he the only source of improvement ; and tin- want of ac- 
quaintance with the leading principles of mechanical philosophy, 
the chance- wen' indefinitely multiplied againel these accidental 
improvement-,. For want of the diffusion of information among 

practical men. the principle- prevailing in an ait in one place were 

unknown in other places; and processes existing at one period 
wen liable to be forgotten in the lapse of time. Secrets and mys- 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 233 

teries, easily kept in such a state of things, and cherished by their 
possessor as a source of monopoly, were so common, that mystery 
is still occasionally used as synonymous with trade. This also con- 
tributed to the loss of arts once brought to perfection, such as that 
of staining glass, as practised in the middle ages. Complicated 
machinery was out of the question ; for it requires, for its inven- 
tion and improvement, the union of scientific knowledge and prac- 
tical skill. The mariner was left to creep along the coast, while 
the astronomer was casting nativities ; and the miner was reduced 
to the most laborious and purely mechanical processes, to extract 
the precious metals from the ores that really contained them, while 
the chemist, who ought to have taught him the method of amalga- 
mation, could find no use for mercury, but as a menstruum, by 
which baser metals could be turned into gold. 

At the present day, this state of things is certainly changed. A 
variety of popular treatises and works of reference have made the 
great principles of natural science generally accessible. It certain- 
ly is in the power of almost every one, by pains and time properly 
bestowed, to acquire a decent knowledge of every branch of prac- 
tical philosophy. But still, it would appear, that, even now, this 
part of education is not on the right footing. Generally speaking, 
even now, all actual instruction in the principles of natural science 
is confined to the colleges ; and the colleges are, for the most part, 
frequented only by those intended for professional life. The ele- 
mentary knowledge of science, which is communicated at the col- 
leges, is indeed useful in any and every calling ; but it does not 
seem right, that none but those intended for the pulpit, the bar, or 
the profession of medicine, should receive instruction in those prin- 
ciples, which regulate the operation of the mechanical powers, and 
lie at the foundation of complicated machinery ; which relate to 
the navigation of the seas, the smelting and refining of metals, the 
composition and improvement of soils, the reduction to a uniform 
whiteness of the vegetable fibre, the mixture and application of 
colors, the motion and pressure of fluids in large masses, the nature 
of light and heat, the laws of magnetism, electricity, and galvanism. 
It would seem, that this kind of knowledge was more immediately 
requisite for those who are to construct or make use of labor-saving 
machinery, who are to traverse the ocean, to lay out and direct the 
29 



234 l W ERETT»S ORATIONS. 

excavation of canals, to build steam-engines and hydraulic presses, 
to work mini'-, and to conduct lame agricultural and manufacturing 
establishments. Hitherto, with some partial exceptions, little has 
been done, systematically, to all'ord to those engaged in these pur- 
suits, that knowledge, which, however convenient to others, would 
seem essential to them. There has been scarce an} thing, which 
could be called education for practical life : and those persons, vi ho, 
in the pursuil of an} of the useful arts, have signalized themselves, 
by the employment of scientific principles, for the invention of new 
process* s, or the improvement of the old, have been self-educati d 
nun. 

I am a\\ an 1 , that it i^ often made an argument against scientific 
education, that the greatest discoveries and inventions have been 
cither the production of such self-educated men. or have been 
struck out by accident. There certainly is some truth in this. So 
long as no regular system of scientific education for the working 
classes exists, it i- a matter of necessity, that, if any great improve- 
ment he made, it must be either the resull of accident, orthe happy 
thoughl of some powerful native genius, which forces its wa} with- 
out education, to the most astonishing results. This, however, is 
no more the case, with respect to the useful arts and the mechani- 
cal pursuits, than with respect to all the other occupations of societ} ; 
and it would continue to he the case, after the establishment of the 
ystem of scientific education. We find, in ever} pursuit and 
calling, Mime instances of remarkable men. who. without an early 
education adapted to the object, have raised themselves to greal 
eminence. Lord Chancellor King, in England, was a grocer at 
that period of life, which is commonly spenl in academical study, 
by those destined lor the profession of the law. Chief Justice 
Pratt, of New York, having been brought up a carpenter, was led. 
b} a severe CUl from an axe, which unfitted him for work, to turn 
hi- attention to the law. Franklin, who seemed equally to excel 
in the conduct of the business of life, in the sublimes! studies of 
philosophy, and iii the management of the mosl difficult state affairs, 
was bred a printer. All thes< callings are quite respectable, but 
no one would think of choosing either of them as the school of the 
lawyer, judge, or statesman. The fact, thai the native power ol 
genius sometimes I inst all obstacli -. ami under 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 235 

every discouragement, proves nothing as to the course which it is 
expedient for the generality of men to pursue. The safe path to 
excellence and success, in every calling, is that of appropriate 
preliminary education, diligent application to learn the art, and 
assiduity in practising it. And I can perceive no reason, why this 
course should not be followed, in reference to the mechanical, as 
well as the professional callings. The instances of eminent men, 
like those named, and many others that might be named, such as 
Arkwright and Harrison, who have sprung from the depths oi pov- 
erty to astonish and benefit mankind, no more prove that education 
is useless to the mechanic, than the corresponding examples prove, 
that it is useless to the statesman, jurist, or divine. 

Besides, it will perhaps be found, that the great men, like those 
I have named, instead of being instances to show that education is 
useless, prove only, that, occasionally, men, who commence their 
education late, are as successful as those who commence it early. 
This shows, not that an early education is no benefit, but that the 
want of it may sometimes be made up in later years. It might be 
so made up, no doubt, oftener than it is ; and it is, in this country, 
much more frequently than in any other. 

The foundation of a great improvement is also often a single 
conception, which suggests itself occasionally to strong and uned- 
ucated minds ; and who have the good fortune, afterwards, to receive 
from others that aid, in executing their projects, without which the 
most promising conception might have perished undeveloped. 
Thus Sir Richard Arkwright was without education, but endowed 
with a wonderful quickness of mind. What particular circum- 
stances awakened his mechanical taste, w r e are not told. There is 
some reason to think, that this, like other strongly-marked aptitudes, 
may partly depend on the peculiar organization of the body, which 
is exactly the same in no two men. The daily observation of the 
operation of the spinning-wheel, in the cottages of the peasantry 
of Lancashire, gave him a full knowdedge of the existing state of 
the art, which it was his good fortune to improve to a degree which 
is even yet the wonder of the world. He conceived, at length 
the idea of an improved machine for spinning. And in this con- 
ception, — not improbably a flash across the mind, the work of an 
instant, — lay all his original merit. But this is every thing. 



236 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

America was discovered from the moment that Columbus firmly 
gTasped the idea that, the earth being spherical, the Indies might 
be reached by sailing on a westerly eourse. If the actual discov- 
ery had not been made for ages after the death of Columbus, he 
would, nevertheless, in publishing this idea to the world, have been 
the pilot that led the way, whoever had followed his guidance. 
Sir Richard Aikwright, having formed the conception of his spin- 
ning machine, had recourse to a watchmaker to execute hi- idea. 
But how rarely could it happen, that circumstances would put it in 
the power of a person, ignorant, and poor, to engage the coopera- 
tion of an intelligent watchmaker! 

Neither is it intended, that the education which we recommend, 
should extend to a minute acquaintance with the practical applica- 
tion of .science to the details of every art. This would he 
impossible, and does not belong to preparatory education. We 
wish only that the genera) laws and principles should be so taught, 
as greatl) to multiply the number of persons competent to carry 
forward such casual suggestions of improvement as ma) present 
themselves, and to bring their art to that state of increasing excel- 
lence, which all arts reach by long-continued, intelligent culti- 
vation. 

It may further he observed, w ith respect to those greal discoveries 

which seem to be produced by happy accidents and fortuitous 

jtion, that such happy accidents are mosl likelj to fall in the 

way of those, who are on the look out for them. — those whose 

mental eyesight has been awakened and practised to behold them. 

The world is informed of all the cases in which such fortunate 

accident- have led to useful and hrilliant results ; hut their number 
would probably appear smaller than it is now supposed to he. were 
such a thing possible as the negative history of discovery and im- 
provement. No one can tell us what might have been done, had 
every opportunity been faithfully improved, every suggestion 
sagaciously caught up and followed out. No one can tell how 
often the uneducated or unobservant mind has approached to the 
\<iy verge of a greal discovery, — has had some wonderful inven- 
tion almost thrust upon it. — but without effect. The ancients, as 
we learn from many passages in the Greek and Latin classics, were 
acquainted with convi \ lenses, but did not apply them to the con- 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 237 

struction of magnifying glasses or telescopes. They made use of 
seal-rings with inscriptions; and they marked their flocks with 
brands, containing the owner's name. In each of these practices, 
faint rudiments of the art of printing are concealed. Cicero, in 
one of his moral works, (De Natura Deorum,) in confuting the 
error of those philosophers, who taught that the world was pro- 
duced by the fortuitous concourse of wandering atoms, uses the 
following language, as curious, in connexion with the point I would 
illustrate, as it is beautiful in expression, and powerful in argu- 
ment : — ' Here,' says he, < must I not wonder, if there should be a 
man who can persuade himself, that certain solid and separate 
bodies are borne about by force or weight, and that this most 
beautiful and finished world is formed by their accidental meeting ? 
Whoever can think this possible, I do not see why he cannot also 
believe that, if a large number of forms of the one and twenty 
letters (of gold or any like substance) were thrown any where 
together, that the annals of Ennius might be made out from them, 
as they are cast on the ground, so as to be read in order ; a thing 
which I know not if it be within the power of chance to effect, 
even in a single verse.' How very near an approach is made, in 
this remark, to the invention of the art of printing, fifteen hundred 
years before it took place ! 

How slight and familiar was the occurrence which gave to Sir 
Isaac Newton the first suggestion of his system of the universe ! 
This great man had been driven by the plague from London to the 
country, and had left his library behind him. Obliged to find 
occupation in the activity of his own mind, he was led, in his med- 
itations, to trace the extent of the principle which occasioned the 
fall of an apple from the tree, in the garden where he passed his 
solitary hours. Commencing with this familiar hint, he followed it 
out to that universal law of gravity, which binds the parts of the 
earth and ocean together, which draws the moon to the earth, the 
satellites to the planets, the planets to the sun, and the sun itself, 
with its attendant worlds, toward some grand and general point of 
attraction for that infinity of systems, of which the several stars 
are the centres. How many hundreds of thousands of men, since 
the creation of the world, had seen an apple falling from a tree ! 
How many philosophers had speculated profoundly, on the system 



vJ-'J- l.\ KHETT'S ORATIONS. 

of the universe! But it required the talenl of a num. placed by 
general consent at the head of the human race, to deduce from this 
familiar occurrence, on the surface of the earth, the operation of 
the primordial law of nature which governs the movements ol the 
heavens, and holds the u ni vcpm' together. Nothing less than his 
:i\ could have made the deduction, and nothing less than a 
mathematical skill, and an acquaintance with the previously a 
tained principles of science, — such as falls to the lot of v< \\ I « w . — 
would have enabled Newton to demonstrate the truth of his 
system. 

Let us quote another example, to -how that the most obvious 
and familiar tacts may be noticed for ages without effect, till they 
are observed !>v a sagacious eye, and scrutinized with patience and 
perseverance. The appearance of lightning in the clouds is as old 
as creation : and certainl) no natural phenomenon force- itself more 

directh on the notice of men. The existence of the electric fluid, 

as excited by artificial means, was familiarly known to philosophers 
a hundred years before Franklin ; and there are a few vague hints, 
prior to his lime, that lightning is an electrical appearance. Bui 
it was left for Franklin distinctly to concehe that proposition, and 
to institute an experiment h\ which it should be demonstrated. 
The process, by which he reached this great conclusion is worth 
remembering. I >r Franklin had seen the most familiar electrical i \- 
periments performed at Boston, in 11 15, I>\ a certain Dr Spence, a 
Scotch lecturer. 1 li- curiosity w as excited bj w itnessing these experi- 
ments, and he purchased the whole of Dr Spence's apparatus, and 
repeated the experiments at Philadelphia. Pursuing his researches 
with his own instruments, and others which had heen liheralk pre- 
sented to the province of Pennsylvania, by the proprietor. Mr 
Perm, and bj Dr Franklin's friend, Mr Collinson, our illustrious 
countryman rapidly enlarged the bounds of electrical science, and 
soon arrived al the undoubting conviction, that the electrical fluid 
and lightning are identical. Hut he could not rest till he had 
broughl this truth to the test of demonstration, and he boldlj sei 
about an experiment, upon the mos1 terrific element in nature. He 
at first proposed, to means of a spire, which was erecting in Phil- 
adelphia, to form a connexion between the region of the clouds 
and an electrical apparatus; bul the appearance of a boy*) kit< in 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 239 

the air, suggested to him a readier method. Having prepared a 
kite adapted for the purpose, he went out into a field, accompanied 
by his son, to whom alone he had imparted his design. The kite 
was raised, having a key attached to the lower end of the cord, 
and being insulated by means of a silken thread, by which it was 
fastened to a post. A heavy cloud, apparently charged with light- 
ning, passed over the kite ; but no signs of electricity were witness- 
ed in the apparatus. Franklin was beginning to despair, when he 
saw the loose fibres bristling from the hempen cord. He immedi- 
ately presented his knuckle to the key, and received the electrical 
spark. Overcome by his feelings, at the consummation of this 
great discovery, 'he heaved a deep sigh, and, conscious of an im- 
mortal name, felt that he could have been content, had that moment 
been his last.' How easily it might have been his last, was shown 
by the fact, that when Professor Richman, a few months afterwards, 
was repeating this experiment at St Petersburgh, a globe of fire 
flashed from the conducting rod to his forehead, and killed him on 
the spot. 

Brilliant as Dr Franklin's discoveries in electricity were, and 
much as he advanced the science by his sagacious experiments and 
unwearied investigations, a rich harvest of farther discoveries was 
left by him to the succeeding age. The most extraordinary of these 
is the discovery of a modification of electricity, which bears the 
name of the philosopher by whom it was made known to the 
world ; — I refer, of course, to Galvanism. Lewis Galvani was an 
anatomist in Bologna. On a table in his study, lay some frogs, 
which had been prepared for a broth for his wife, who was ill. 
An electrical machine stood on the table. A student of Galvani 
accidentally touched the nerve on the inside of the leg of one of 
the frogs, and convulsions immediately took place in the body of 
the animal. Galvani himself was not present at the moment, but 
this curious circumstance caught the attention of his wife, — a lady 
of education and talent, — who ascribed it to some influence of the 
electrical machine. She informed her husband of what had hap- 
pened, and it was his opinion also, that the electrical machine was 
the origin of the convulsions. A long-continued and patient course 
of investigation corrected this error, and established the science of 
galvanic electricity, nearly as it now exists ; and which has proved, 



\M<> EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

in the bands of Sir Humphrey Daw, the agent of the most bril- 
liant and astonishing discoveries. Frogs have been a common 
article of food in Europe for ages; but it was only when they 
were brought by accident into the studj of the anatomist, and fell 
ith the notice of a sagacious eye, that they became the occa- 
sion of this brilliant discovery. 

In all these examples, we see that, whatever he the first origin 
of a greal discovery or improvement, science and study are required 
to perfect and illustrate it. The want of a knowledge of the prin- 
ciples of science bas often led men to v> aste much time on pursuits, 
which a better acquaintance with those principles would have 
taught them were hopeless. The patent office, in every country 
where such an institution exists, contains, perhaps, as man) ma- 
chines, which show the want, as the possession, of sound scientific 
knowledge. Besides unsuccessful essays at machinery, holding 
forth a promise of feasibility, no little ingenuity, and much time and 
money, have been lavished on a project, which seems, in modern 
times, to supply the place of the philosopher's stone of the alche- 
mists ; — I mean a contrivance for perpetual motion : a contrivance 
inconsistent with the law of gravity. A familiar acquaintance with 
the principle- of science is useful, not only to guide the mind to 
the discover) of what is true and practical, but to protect it from 
the delusions of an excited imagination, ready to waste itself, in the 
ardor of youth, enterprise, and conscious ingenuity, on that which 
the laws of Nature herself have made unattainable. 

Such are some of the considerations, which show the general 
utility of scientific education, for those engaged in the mechanical 
arts. Lei us now advert to son,,, of the circumstances, which 
ought, particularly in the United States of America, to act as en- 
couragements to the young men of the country to appl) themselves 
earnestly, and. as far ;i< it can be done, systematically, to the at- 
tainment of such an education. 

1. And. first, it is beyond all question, that what are called the 
mechanical trades of this country are on a much more liberal foot- 
ing than they arc in Europe. This circumstance not onlj ought 
to encourage those who pursue them, to take an honest pride in 

improvement, but it make, it their incumbent dun to do so. In 

almost ever) countrj of Europe, various restraints are imposed on 



Everett's orations. 241 

the mechanics, which almost amount to slavery. A good deal of 
censure has been lately thrown on the journeymen printers of Paris, 
for entering into combinations not to work for their employers, and 
for breaking up the power-presses, which were used by the great 
employing printers. I certainly shall not undertake to justify any 
acts of illegal violence, and the destruction of property. But when 
you consider, that no man can be a master printer in France with- 
out a license, and that only eighty licenses were granted in Paris, 
it is by no means wonderful that the journeymen, forbidden by law 
to set up for themselves, and prevented by the power-presses from 
getting work from others, should be disposed, after having carried 
through one revolution for the government, to undertake another 
for themselves. Of what consequence is it to a man, forbidden by 
the law to work for his living, whether Charles X or Louis Philip 
is king ? 

In England, it is exceedingly difficult for a mechanic to obtain 
a settlement, in any town except that in which he was born, or 
where he served his apprenticeship. The object of imposing these 
restrictions is, of course, to enforce on each parish the maintenance 
of its native poor ; and the resort of mechanics from place to place, 
is permitted only on conditions with which many of them are un- 
able to comply. The consequence is, they are obliged to stay 
where they were bom ; where, perhaps, there are already more 
hands than can find work ; and, from the decline of the place, even 
the established artisans want employment. Chained to such a spot, 
where chance and necessity have bound him, the young man feels 
himself but half free. He is thwarted in his choice of a pursuit 
for life, and obliged to take up with an employment against his 
preference, because there is no opening in any other. He is de- 
pressed in his own estimation, because he finds himself unprotected 
in society. The least evil likely to befall him is, that he drags 
along a discouraged and unproductive existence. He more natu- 
rally falls into dissipation and vice, or enlists in the army or navy ; 
while the place of his nativity is gradually becoming a decayed, 
and finally a rotten borough, and, as such, enables some rich noble- 
man to send two members to parliament, to make laws against 
combinations of workmen. 
30 



-IJ EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

In other countries, singular institutions exist, imposing oppn 
burdens on the mechanical classes. I refer now more particularly 
corporations, guilds, or crafts, as thej are called, thai is, to 
the companies formed by the members of a particular trade. These 
exist, with greal privileges, in everj pari of Europe; in Germany, 
there are some features in the institution, as it seems to me, pecu- 
liarly oppressive. The different crafts in thai country are incor- 
porations recognized bj law, governed b) usages of greal antiquity, 
with funds to defra) the corporate exp< nses, and in each consider- 
able tow n. a house of entertainment is selected, as the house of call, 
(or harbor, as ii is styled,) of cadi particular craft. No one is 
allowed to sel up as a master workman, in any trade, unless he is 
admitted as a freeman or member of the craft : and Mich i- the 
stationary condition of mosl parts of Germany, thai I understand 
thai no person is admitted as a master workman in any trade. 
excepl to supply the place of some one deceased or retired from 
business. When such a \ acancy occurs, all those desirous of being 
permitted to fill it. presenl a piece of work, which is called their 
master-piece, being offered to obtain the place of a master work- 

in:m. .Nominally, the besl workman gets the place; hut VOU will 

easil} conceive, that, in reality, some kind of favoritism must gen- 
erall) decide it. Thus i- every man obliged to submil to all the 

chances of a popular election, whether he shall he allowed to work 
for his bread; and that, too, in a country where the people are not 
permitted to have any agencj in choosing their rulers. Hut the 
restraints on journeymen, in that country, are still more oppressive. 
Is soon as the years of apprenticeship have expired, the young 
mechanic i- obliged, in the phrase of the country, to wander for 
three _\ ears. For this purpose he i- furnished l>\ the master of the 

craft in w hich he ha- served his apprenticeship, w ith a duly authen- 
ticated wandering hook, with which he th to seek employ- 
ment. In whatever city he arrives, on presenting himself, with 
this credential, at the house of call, or harbor, of the craft in w hich 
he ha- served hi- time, he i- allowed, -rati,. a day's food and a night's 
lodging. If he wishes to gel employment in that place, he is 
d 111 procuring it. If he <',>,, not wish to, or fails in the 
attempt, he must pursue his wandering ; and this lasts for three 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 243 

years, before he can be any where admitted as a master. I have 
heard it argued, that this system had the advantage of circulating- 
knowledge from place to place, and imparting to the young artisan 
the fruits of travel and intercourse with the world. But however 
beneficial travelling may be, when undertaken by those who have 
the taste and capacity to profit by it, I cannot but think, that to 
compel every young man, who has just served out his time, to 
leave his home, in the manner I have described, must bring his 
habits and morals into peril, and be regarded rather as a hardship 
than as an advantage. There is no sanctuary of virtue like home. 

You will see, from these few hints, the nature of some of the re- 
straints and oppressions to which the mechanical industry of Europe 
is subjected. Wherever governments and corporations thus inter- 
fere with private industry, the spring of personal enterprise is unbent. 
Men are depressed with a consciousness of living under control. 
They cease to feel a responsibility for themselves, and, encounter- 
ing obstacles whenever they step from the beaten path, they give 
up improvement as hopeless. I need not, in the presence of this 
audience, remark on the total difference of things in America. 
We are apt to think, that the only thing in which we have improv- 
ed on other countries, is our political constitution, whereby we 
choose our rulers, instead of recognizing their hereditary right. — 
But a much more important difference between us and foreign 
countries is wrought into the very texture of our society ; it is that 
generally pervading freedom from restraint, in matters like those I 
have just specified. In England, it is said that forty days' undisturb- 
ed residence in a parish gives a journeyman mechanic a settlement, 
and consequently entitles him, should he need it, to support from 
the poor rates of that parish. To obviate this effect, the magis- 
trates are on the alert, and instantly expel a new comer from their 
limits, who does not possess means of giving security, such as few 
young mechanics command. A duress like this, environing the 
young man, on his entrance into life, upon every side, and con- 
demning him to imprisonment for life on the spot where he was 
born, converts the government of the country, — whatever be its 
name, — into a despotism. 

2. There is another consideration, which invites the artisans of 
this country to improve their minds ; it is the vastly wider field 



J 1 1 I \ r. RETT'S ORATIONS. 

which is opened to them, as the citizens of a new country ; and 
the proportionate call which exists for labor and enterprise in everj 
department. In the old world, society is full. In every country 
hut England, it has long hem full. It was in that country not less 
crowded, till the vasl improvements in machinery and manufactu- 
ring industry were made, which have rendered it, in reference to 
manufactures and commerce, — what ours is, still more remarkably, 
in every thing, — a new country, — a country of urgent and expan- 
sive demand, where nev* branches of employment are constantly 
opening, new kinds of talent called for, new arts struck out, and 
more hands employed in all the old ones. In differenl parts of our 
country, the demand is of a different kind, but it is active and stir- 
ring every w here. 

It may not he without use to consider the various causes of this 
enlargement of the held of action, in this country. 

The first, and perhaps the main cause, is the great abundance 
ot good land, which lies open, on the easiest conditions, to every 
man who wishes to avail himself of it. One dollar and twenty- 
five lent- will enable any man to purchase an acre of first rate 
laud. This circumstance alone acts like a safety-valve to the 
social steam-engine. There can he no very great pressure any 
where in a community, where, by travelling a few miles into the 
interior, a man can buy an acre of land Tor a day's work. This 
was tin- first stimulus applied to the condition of things in this 
country, after the revolutionary war, and it is still operating in 
full force. 

The next powerful spring to our industry was fell in the naviga- 
ting interest. This languished greatly under the old confederation, 
being crushed by foreign competition. The adoption of the con- 
stitution breathed the breath of life into it. By the duty on foreign 
tonnage, and by the confinement of the privilege of an American 
vessel to an American built ship, our commercial marine sprang 
into existence with the rapidity of magic, and. — under a peculiar 
state of thin-- in Europe, — appropriated to itself the carrying trade 

of the world. 

Short k after this stimulus was applied to the industry of the 

Northern and Middle State-, the Southern States acquired an equal- 
ly prolific source of wealth, unexpected and rapid beyond example 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 245 

in its operation ; — I mean the cultivation of cotton. In 1789, the 
hope was expressed by southern members of congress, that, if good 
seed could be procured, cotton might be raised in the Southern 
States, where, before that time, and for several years after, not a 
pound had been raised for exportation. The culture of this beau- 
tiful staple was encouraged by a duty of three cents a pound on 
imported cotton ; but it languished for some time, on account of 
the difficulty of separating the seed from the fibre. At length, Eli 
Whitney, of Connecticut, invented the saw-gin ; and so prodigiously 
has this culture increased, that it is calculated that the cotton crop 
of last year amounted to one million of bales, of at least three hun- 
dred pounds each. 

In 1807, the first successful essays were made with steam navi- 
gation. The progress at first was slow. In 1817, there was not 
such a thing as a regular line of steamboats on the western waters. 
Two hundred steamboats now ply those waters, and half as many 
navigate the waters of the Atlantic coast. 

The embargo and war created the manufactures of the United 
States. Before that period, nothing was done, on a large scale, in 
the way of manufactures. With some fluctuations in prosperity, 
they have succeeded in establishing themselves on a firm basis. 
A laboring man can now buy two good shirts, well made, for a 
dollar. Fifteen years ago, they would have cost him three times 
that sum. 

Still more recently, a system of internal improvements has been 
commenced, which will have the effect, when a little further de- 
veloped, of crowding within a few years the progress of generations. 
Already, Lake Champlain, from the north, and Lake Erie, from 
the west, have been connected with Albany. The Delaware and 
Chesapeake Bays have been united. A canal is nearly finished in 
the upper part of New Jersey, from the Delaware to the Hudson, 
by which coal is already despatched to our market. Another 
route is laid out across the same State, to connect New York, by a 
rail-road, with Philadelphia. A water communication has been 
opened by canals half way from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. Con- 
siderable progress is made both on the rail-road and the canal, 
which are to unite Baltimore and Washington with the Ohio river. 
A canal of sixty miles in length is open from Cincinnati to Dayton, 



vM<> EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

in the State of Ohio ; and another, of more than three hundred 
miles in extent, to connect Lake Erie with the Ohio, is two thirds 
completed.* 

I mention these facts, (which, though among the mosl consider- 
able, are by do means all of the same character which might be 
quoted,) nol men l\ as being in themselves curious and importanl : 
though this thej are in a high degree. M\ object i-. to turn your 
attention to their natural effect, in keeping up a constant and high 
demand for labor, art, skill, and talent of all kinds, and their accu- 
mulated fruits, thai is, capital ; and thereby particularly inviting the 
young to exert themselves strenuously to take an active, industrious 
and honorable pari in a community, w bich lias such a variety of em- 
ployments and rewards for all its members. The rising generation 
beholds before it not a crowdi d community, but one w here labor, both 
of body and mind, is in greater request, and bears a higher relative 
price, than in any other country. When it is said that labor is dear 
in this country, this is not a mere commercial proposition, like those 
which fill the pages of the price current ; hut it is a greal moral 
fart, speaking volumes as to the state of societj . and reminding the 
American citizen, particularly the young man who h beginning life, 
that he lives in a country where every man carries about with him 
the thin- in greatest n quest : where the labor and skill of the hu- 
man hands, and every kind of talent and acquisition, pos 
relative importance (hew here unknown. — in other word-, where an 

industrious man is of the greatest con>e(jueiice. 

These considerations are well calculated to awaken enterprise, 
io encourage effort, to support perseverance; and we behold on 
every side that such is their effect. I have already alluded to the 
astonishing growth of our navigation after the adoption of the fed- 
eral constitution. It afibrds an example, which will bear dwelling 
upon, of American enterprise, placed in honorable contrasl with 
that of Europe. In Great Britain, and in other countries of 
Europe, the India and China trade was, and to a greal degree -till 
is, lo.ki-d up li\ the monopoly enjoyed l>\ affluenl companies, pro- 
! and patronized by the state, and clothed, themselves, in 



Mfoil of ill'- work* lure mentioned a- being in progreu, lire now ( 1886) com- 
|il. ted i and innumerable othen have since been undertaken or projei ted. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 247 

some cases, with imperial power. The territories of the British 
East India Company are computed to embrace a population of one 
hundred and fifteen millions of souls. The consequence of this 
state of things was not the activity, but the embarrassment, of the 
commercial intercourse with the East. Individual enterprise was 
not awakened. The companies sent out annually their unwieldy 
vessels of twelve hundred tons burden, commanded by salaried 
captains, to carry on the commerce which was secured to them by 
a government monopoly, and which, it was firmly believed, could 
not be carried on in any other way. Scarcely was American in- 
dependence declared, when our moderate-sized merchant vessels, 
built with economy, and navigated with frugality, doubled both the 
great capes of the world. The north-western coast of America 
began to be crowded. Not content with visiting old markets, our 
intelligent ship-masters explored the numerous islands of the Indian 
Archipelago. Vessels from Salem and Boston, of two and three 
hundred tons, went to ports in those seas, that had not been visited 
by a foreign ship since the days of Alexander the Great. The 
intercourse between Boston and the Sandwich Islands was uninter- 
rupted. A man would no more have thought of boasting that he 
had been round the world, than that he had been to Liverpool. 
After Lord Anson and Captain Cook had, by order and at the 
expense of the British government, made their laborious voyages of 
discovery and exploration in the Pacific ocean, and on the coast of 
America, it still remained for a merchant vessel from Boston, to 
discover and enter the only considerable river that flows into the 
Pacific, from Behring's Strait to Cape Horn. Our fellow citizen, 
Captain Gray, piloted the British admiral Vancouver into the Co- 
lumbia river ; and, in requital of this service, the British govern- 
ment now claims jurisdiction over it, partly on the ground of prior 
discovery ! 

This is a single instance of the propitious effect on individual 
enterprise of the condition of things under which we live. But 
the work is not all done ; it is, in fact, hardly begun. This vast 
continent is as yet no where fully stocked, — almost every where 
thinly peopled. There are yet mighty regions of it, in which the 
settler's axe has never been heard. These remain, and portions of 
them will long remain, open for coming generations, a sure pre- 



•J l~ I \ KRETT'S ORATIONS. 

servative against the evils of a redundant population on the sea- 
board. The older parts of the country, which have been settled 
1»\ the husbandman, and reclaimed from the state of nature, are 
now to be settled again bj the manufacturer, the engineer, and the 
mechanic. First settled b) a civilized, they are now to be settled 
by a dense population. Settled by the bard labor of the human 
hands, they are now to be settled by the labor-saving arts, l>\ 
machinery*, 1>\ the steam-engine, and b) internal improvements. 
Hitherto, the work to he done, was that which DOthing but the 
tough sinew-- of the arm of man could accomplish. This work, in 
most of the old States, and some of the new ones, has been done. 
and is finished. It was performed under incredible hardships, tear- 
ful dangers, with heart-sickening sacrifices, amidst the perils of 
savage tribes, and of the diseases incident to a soil on which deep 
forests, for a thousand years, had been laying their deposit, and 
which was now for the first time opened to the sun. The kind, 
the degree, the intensity of the labor, which has been performed 
by the men who settled this country, have, I am sure, no parallel 
in history. 1 believe, if a thrifty European fanner from .Norfolk, in 
England, or Flanders, a vine-dresser from Burgundy, an olive- 
gardener from Italy. — under the influence of do stronger feelings 
than those which actuate the mass of the stationary population of 

those countries, — were set down in a .North American forest, with 
an axe od his shoulder, and told to get bis living, that bis heart 
would fail him al the sight. What has been the slow work of two 
thousand years in Europe, has here been effected in two hundred. 
unquestionably under the cheering moral effeel of our free institu- 
tion-. We have now. in some parts of the United States, reached 
a point in our progress, where, to a considerable degree, a new 
form of societj w ill appear ; in w hich the wants of a settled coun- 
try and a comparative!) dense population will succeed to those of 
a thin population, scattered over a soil as yel hut partially reclaimed. 
We shall henceforth feel, more and more, the want of improved 
means of communication. W e must, in every direction, have turn- 
pike roads, unobstructed rivers, canal-, rail-road-, and steamboats. 
The mineral treasures of the earth, metal-, coal-, ochres, fine clay. 

linn -tone, gj p-iim. salt, are to he brought to light, and applied to the 

purposes of the arts, and the service of man. Another immense 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 249 

capital, which nature has invested for us in the form of water 
power, (a natural capital, which I take to be fully equal to the 
steam capital of Great Britain,) is to be turned to account, by be- 
ing made to give motion to machinery. Still another vast capital, 
lying unproductive, in the form of land, is to be realized, and no 
small part of it, for the first time, by improved cultivation. All 
the manufactures are to be introduced on a large scale ; the coarser, 
— where it has not been done, — without delay ; and the finer, in 
rapid succession, and in proportion to the acquisition of skill, the 
accumulation of capital, and the improvement of machinery. With 
these will grow up, or increase, the demand for various institutions 
for education ; the call for every species of intellectual service ; 
the need for every kind of professional assistance, — a demand ren- 
dered still more urgent, by a political organization, of itself in the 
highest degree favorable to the creation and diffusion of energy 
throughout the commonwealth. 

These are so many considerations, which call on the rising gen- 
eration of those destined for the active and mechanical arts, to 
improve their minds. It is only in this manner, that they can 
effectually ascertain the true bent of their own faculties, and, hav- 
ing ascertained it, employ themselves with greatest success in the 
way for which Providence has fitted them. It is only in this man- 
ner that they can make themselves highly respected in society, and 
secure to themselves the largest share of those blessings, which are 
the common objects of desire. In most of the countries of the 
older world, the greatest part of the prizes of life are literally dis- 
tributed by the lottery of birth. Men are born to wealth, which 
they cannot alienate ; to power, from which they cannot, without 
a convulsion of the body politic, be removed ; or to poverty and 
depression, from which, generally speaking, they cannot emerge. 
Here, it rarely happens, that, even for a single generation, an 
independence can be enjoyed without labor and diligence bestowed 
on its acquisition and preservation ; while, as a general rule, the 
place to which each individual shall rise in society is precisely 
graduated on the scale of capacity and exertion, — in a word, of 
merit. Every thing, therefore, that shows the magnitude and 
growth of the country, — its abundance and variety of resources, — 
its increasing demand for all the arts, both of ornament and utility, 
31 



250 El i.io.tts ORATIONS. 

— is another reason, calling upon the emulous young men of the 
working classes bo enter into the career of improvement, where 
there is the fullest scope for generous competition, and ever) talent 
of every kind is sure to be required, honored, and rewarded. 

There is another reflection, which ought not to he omitted. 
The rapid growth and swift prosperity of the country bave their pe- 
culiar attendant evils, in addition iii those inseparable from humanitj . 

To resisl the progress of these evils, to provide. sea-on;dilv and 

efficaciously, the moral and reasonable remedy of those disorders 
of the social system, to which it may he more particular!} exposed, 
is a duty to he performed by the enlightened and virtuous portion 
of the mass of the community, quite equal in importance to any 
other duty, which thej are called to discharge. In Europe, it is 
too much the case, that the virtuous influences, which operate on 

the working classes, come down from the privileged orders, while 
the operatives themselves, as they are called, are abandoned to 
most of the vices of the most prolific source of vice, — ignorance. 
It is of the utmost importance, in this country, that the active 
walks of life should be filled bj an enlightened (da— of men. with 
a view to the security and ord< r of the community, and to protect 
it from those evils, which have been thought, in Europe, to be 
inseparable from the great increase of the laboring population. 
What is done in other countries b) gem d'armes and horse-guards, 
must here he done by public sentiment, or not at all. It is an 

enlightened moral public sentiment, that must spread its win-s 

over our dwellings, and plant a watchman at our doors. It is 
perfectly well known to all who hear me. that as a class, the me- 
chanic and manufacturing population of Europe is regarded as 

grosslj depraved; while' the agricultural population. — with as little 

exception, — is set down as incurably stupid. This conviction was 

SO prevalent, that many of the mosl patriotic of OUT citizen- were 
Opposed to the introduction of manufacture- anions us. partlv on 

the ground, that factories are, in their nature, seminaries of vice 
ami immorality. Thus far. this fear has been mosl happily relieved 
Experience ; and it i< found that those establishments are as 
little open to reproach, on die score of morals, a- any other in the 
community . < >ur mechanic and agricultural population w ill. in this 
part of the country, support the comparison, for general intelli 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 251 

and morality with any in the world. This state of things, if it can 
be rendered permanent, is a great social triumph, and will be to 
America a juster subject of self-gratulation than any thing belong- 
ing merely to the political, economical, and physical growth of the 
community. It deserves the consideration of every patriot, that 
the surest way of perpetuating and diffusing this most enviable state 
of things, — this most desirable of all the advantages, which we can 
have over the old world, — is to multiply the means of improving 
the mind, and put them within the reach of all classes. An intel- 
ligent class can scarce ever be, as a class, vicious ; never, as a class, 
indolent. The excited mental activity operates as a counterpoise 
to the stimulus of sense and appetite. The new world of ideas ; 
the new views of the relations of things ; the astonishing secrets 
of the physical properties and mechanical powers, disclosed to the 
well-informed mind, present attractions, which, — unless the char- 
acter is deeply sunk, — are sufficient to counterbalance the taste for 
frivolous or corrupt pleasures ; and thus, in the end, a standard of 
character is created in the community, which, though it does not 
invariably save each individual, protects the virtue of the mass. 

3. I am thus brought to the last consideration, which I shall 
mention, as an encouragement to the mechanic classes to improve 
their minds ; and that is, the comparatively higher rank which our 
institutions assign to them in the political system. One of the 
great causes, no doubt, of the enterprise and vigor which have 
already distinguished our countrymen, in almost every pursuit, is 
the absence of those political distinctions, which are independent 
of personal merit and popular choice. It is the strongest motive 
that we can suggest, for unremitted diligence in the acquisition of 
useful knowledge, on the part of the laborious classes, that they 
have a far more responsible duty to discharge to society than ever 
devolved on the same class in any other community. Every book 
of travels, not less than every opportunity of personal observation, 
instructs us of the deplorable ignorance of a great part of those by 
whom the work of the community is done, in foreign countries. 
In some parts of England, this class is more enlightened than it is 
on the continent of Europe ; and in that country, great efforts are 
making, at the present time, — and particularly through the instru- 



252 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

mentality of institutions like thai under the auspices of which we 
are now assembled, — to extend the means of education to those 
who have hitherto been deprived of them. I>m it is a party ques- 
tion among them, not how tin- it is righl and proper, but how tin- it is 
prudent and safe, to enlighten the people ; and while the liberal 
part} in England are urgenl for the diffusion of useful knowledge, to 
prevenl the people from breaking out into violence and revolution, 
the government part) exclaim against a farther diffusion of knowl- 
edge) as tending to make the people discontented with their condi- 
tion. 1 remember to have seen, not long since, a charge to the 
grand jury by a verj eminent English judge, in which the practice 
oi boxing is commended, and the fear is expressed, that popular 
education has been pushed too fat! 

The man who should, in this country, express the opinion, that 
the education of the people foreboded ill to the state, would merely 
be regarded a- wanting common judgment and sagacity. We are 
not only accustomed to that state of things, hut we regard it as our 
great blessing and privilege, to which the higher orders in Europe 
look forward, as the fearful result of bloody revolutions. The 
repK Miitatixe system, and our statute of distributions, are regarded 
h\ ii-. not as horrors consequent upon a convulsion of society, but 
as the natural condition of the body politic. 

This condition of the country, however, is not to be regarded 
men l\ as a topic of lofty political declamation. Its besl effects 
are. and must he. those which are not immediately of a political 

character, [f the mass of the people behold do privileged class 
placed invidiousl) above them: if they choose those who make 
and administer the laws; if the extent of public expenditure is 
determined bj those who hear its burden, — this surelj is well; 

but if the SS of the people here were what it is in most parts 

of Europe, it maj be doubted whether such a system would not 

be too good for them. W'liu would like to trust his life and fortune 
to a Spanish jury, or a Neapolitan jury? Under the reign of 

Napoleon, an attempt was made to introduce the trial by jury, not 

only into France, but into some of the dependent kingdoms. Ii 
h i been stat< d, that when the peasants of some of these countrie 
win impanneled in the jury-box, the) not onl) considered it an 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 253 

excessively onorous and irksome duty, but showed themselves utter- 
ly incapable of discharging it with sufficient discretion and intelli- 
gence. 

The great use, then, to be made of popular rights should be 
popular improvement. Let the young man, who is to gain his 
living by his labor and skill, remember that he is . citizen of a free 
state ; that on him and his contemporaries it depends, whether he 
will be happy and prosperous himself in his social condition, and 
whether a precious inheritance of social blessings shall descend, 
unimpaired, to those who come after him ; that there is no impor- 
tant difference in the situation of individuals, but that which 
they themselves cause, or permit to exist ; that if something of the 
inequality in the goods of fortune, which is inseparable from human 
things, exist in this country, it ought to be viewed only as another 
excitement to that industry, by which, nine times out of ten, 
wealth is acquired ; and still more to that cultivation of the mind, 
which, next to the moral character, makes the great difference 
between man and man. The means are already ample and acces- 
sible ; and it is for the majority of the community, by a tax, of 
which the smallest proportion falls on themselves, to increase these 
means to any desirable extent. 

These remarks apply, with equal force, to almost every individ- 
ual. There are some considerations, which address themselves 
more exclusively to the ardent mind emulous of the praise of ex- 
celling. Such cannot realize too soon, that we live in an age of 
improvement ; an age, in which investigation is active and success- 
ful in every quarter ; and in which what has been effected, how- 
ever wonderful, is but the brilliant promise of what may further be 
done. The important discoveries which have been made in almost 
every department of human occupation, speculative and practical, 
within less than a century, are almost infinite. To speak only of 
those which minister most directly to the convenience of man, — 
what changes have not been already wrought in the condition of 
society ; what addition has not been made to the wealth of nations, 
and the means of private comfort, by the inventions, discoveries 
and improvements of the last hundred years ? High in importance 
among these are the increased facilities for transportation. By the 
use of the locomotive steam-engine upon a rail-road, passengers 



"> > ") 1 I \ r. RETT'S ORATIONS. 

and merchandise may now be conveyed from place to place, at the 
rate of fifteen and even twesty miles an hour. AJtbough not to be 
compared with this, the plan of M'Adara is eminently useful, con- 
sisting, as it dors, of a method, by which a surface as hard as a 
imk c.in he earned along, over any foundation, at an expense not 

much greater, and. under some circumstances, not at all greater, 
than that of turnpike roads on the old construction. I>\ the chem- 
ical process of bleaching, what was formerly done by exposure to 
the sun and air for weeks, is now done under cover, in a few days. 
By the machinery for separating the seed from the staple of cotton, 
die \ ulue of everj acre of land, devoted to die culture of this most 
important product, has, to say the least, been doubled. By the 
machinery for carding, spinning, and weaving cotton, the price of 
a \ ml of durable cotton cloth has been reduced from half a dollar 
to a few cents. Lithography and stereotype printing are probably 
destined to have a very important influence in enlarging the gphere 
ot the operations of the press. By the invention of gas lights, an 
inflammable air, yielding the strongest and purest dame, i- extract- 
ed in a laboratory, and conducted, under ground, all over a city, 
and brought up wherever it is required, in the street, in the shop. 
in the dwelling-house. The safety-lamp enables the miner to walk 
unharmed through an atmosphere of explosive gas. And. last and 

chiefest, the application of steam, as a general mo\iiiL r power. i> 

rapidly extending its effect from one branch of industry to another, 

from one interest to another, of the community, and bids fair, 
within no distant period, to produce the most essential changes in 

fie social condition of the world. All these beautiful, surprising, 
and most useful discoveries and improvements have been made 

within less than a century ; most of them within less than half that 
time. 

What must he the rli'rrt of this wonderful multiplication of 

ingenious and useful discoveries and improvements? LJndoubtedl) 

this, that, in addition to all their mum diate beneficial consequences, 
they will had to further discoveries and still greater improvements. 

Of thai \a-t System, which w e Call Nature, and of which none hut 

n \ 111 In u- can comprehend the whole, the law- and the properties, 
that have a ye1 been explored, unquestionably form bu1 a few 
part connected whh a grand ucc< •ion of parts yet undiscovered, 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 255 

by an indissoluble, although an unseen chain. Each new truth 
that is found out, besides its own significance and value, is a step 
to the knowledge of further truth, leading off the inquisitive mind 
on a new track, and upon some higher path ; in the pursuit of 
which new discoveries are made, and the old are brought into new 
and unexpected connexions. 

The history of human science is a collection of facts, which, 
while it proves the connexion with each other of truths and arts, 
at first view remote and disconnected, encourages us to scrutinize 
every department of knowledge, however trite and familiar it may 
seem, with a view to discovering its relation with the laws and 
properties of nature, comprehended within it, but not yet disclosed. 
The individual, who first noticed the attractive power of magnetic 
substances, was gratified, no doubt, with observing a singular and 
inexplicable property of matter, which he may have applied to 
some experiments rather curious than useful. The man, who 
afterwards observed the tendency of a magnetized body toward 
the poles of the earth, unfolded a far more curious and important 
law of nature, but one which, resting there, was productive of no 
practical consequences. Then came the sagacious, or most fortu- 
nate person, who, attaching the artificial magnet to a traversing 
card, contrived the means of steering a vessel in the darkest night 
across the high seas. To him we cannot suppose that the impor- 
tant consequences of his discovery were wholly unperceived ; but 
since, in point of history, near two centuries passed away before 
they began to be developed, we can hardly suppose that the in- 
ventor of the mariner's compass caught more than a glimpse of 
the nature of his invention. The Chinese are supposed to have 
been acquainted with it, as also with the art of printing, from time 
immemorial, without having derived from either any of those re- 
sults, which have changed the aspect of modern Europe. Then 
came Columbus. Guided by the faithful pilot, who watches when 
the eye of man droops, — the patient little steersman, whom dark- 
ness does not blind, nor the storm drive from his post, — Columbus 
discovered a new world ; — a glorious discovery, as he, no doubt, 
felt it to be, both in anticipation and achievement. But it does 
not appear, that even Columbus had indulged a vision more bril- 
liant than that of a princely inheritance for his own family, and a 



256 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

rich colony for Spain ; — a vision fulfilled in his own povertj and 
chains, and in the corruption and degeneracy of the Spanish mon- 
archy. And yet, from his discovery of America, so disastrous to 
himself and country, have sprung] directly or indirectly, most of 
the greal changes of the political, commercial, and social condi- 
tion of man in modern times. It is curious, also, to reflect, that as 
the Chinese, from time immemorial, (as has just been remarked.) 
have possessed the mariner's compass, and the art of printing, to 
little purpose; so they, or some people in their neighborhood, 
on the north-eastern coast of Asia, either with the aid of the com- 
pass, or merely by coasting from island to island, appear to have 
made the discovery of America, on the western side of the conti- 
nent, a thousand years before it was discovered by Columbus, on 
the eastern side, — without, however, deriving from this discover} any 
beneficial consequences to the old world or the new. It was left 
for the spirit of civilization, awakened in western Europe toward 
the close of the fifteenth century, to develope, and put in action, 
the great elements of power and light, latent in this discovery. 

Its first effect was the establishment of the colonial system. 
which, with the revolution in the financial state of Europe, occa- 
sioned by the opening of the American mines, gave, eventually, a 
new aspect to both hemispheres. What the sum total of all these 
consequences ha- lum. nia\ be partly judged from the fact, that 
the colonization of the United States is but one of them. The 
further extension of adventures of discoverj was facilitated by aew 
scientific inventions and improvements. The telescope was con- 
trived, and, from the more accurately observed movements of the 
heavenly bodies, tables of longitude were constructed, which gave 
new confidence to the navigator. Me now visits ne^ shores, lying 
under different climates, whose productions, transplanted to other 

r( gions, or introduced into the commerce of the world, give new 

springs to industry, open new sources of wealth, and lead to the 
cultivation of new arts. It i- unnecessary to dwell on particulars; 
but who can estimate the lull effect on social affairs of such pro- 
ducts as sugar, coffee, tea, rice, tobacco, the potato, cotton, ind%o, 
the spic< -. the dye-woods, the mineral and fossil substances, newl) 
made to enter into general use and consumption; the discovery, 
transportation, and preparation of which are so many unfon 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 257 

effects of former discoveries ? Each of these, directly or indirect- 
ly, furnished new materials for mind to act upon ; new excitement 
to its energies. Navigation, already extended, receives new facil- 
ities from the use of the chronometer. The srowino- wealth of 

O o 

the community increases the demand for all the fahrics of industry ; 
the wonderful machinery for carding, spinning, and weaving, is 
contrived ; water and vapor are made to do the work of human 
hands, and almost of human intellect ; as the cost of the fabric 
decreases, the demand for it multiplies, geometrically, and furnish- 
es an ever-growing reward for the exertions of the ever-active spirit 
of improvement. Thus a mechanical invention may lead to a 
geographical discovery ; a physical cause to a political or an intel- 
lectual effect. A discovery results in an art ; an art produces a 
comfort ; a comfort, made cheaply accessible, adds family on fam- 
ily to the population ; and a family is a new creation of thinking, 
reasoning, inventing, and discovering beings. Thus, instead of 
arriving at the end, we are at the beginning of the series, and 
ready to start, with recruited numbers, on the great and beneficent 
career of useful knowledge. 

What, then, are these great and beneficial discoveries in their 
origin ? What is the process which has led to them ? They are 
the work of rational man, operating upon the materials existing in 
nature, and observing the laws and properties of the physical 
world. The Creator of the universe has furnished us the material ; 
it is all around us, above us, and beneath us ; in the ground under 
our feet ; the air we breathe ; the waters of the ocean, and of the 
fountains of the earth ; in the various subjects of the kingdoms of 
nature. We cannot open our eyes, nor stretch out our hands, nor 
take a step, but we see, and handle, and tread upon the things, 
from which the most wonderful and useful discoveries and inven- 
tions have been deduced. What is gunpowder, which has chang- 
ed the character of modern warfare ? It is the mechanical mixture 
of some of the most common and least costly substances. What 
is the art of printing ? A contrivance less curious, as a piece of 
mechanism, than a musical box. What is the steam-engine? An 
apparatus for applying the vapor of boiling water. What is vac- 
cination ? A trifling ail, communicated by a scratch of the lancet, 
32 



25S 



EVERETT S ORATIONS. 



and capable of protecting human life against one of the most dread- 
ful maladies to w hich it is exposed. 

\inl arc the properties of matter all discovered : its laws all found 
out? the uses to which they maj be applied all detected ? I can- 
not believe it. We cannot doubt, thai truths now unknown are 
in reserve, to nwanl the patience and the labors of future lovers of 
truth, which will go as far beyond the brilliant discoveries of the last 
generation, as these do beyond all that was known to the ancienl 
world. The pages aiv infinite in thai great volume, which was 
written by the hand divine, and they are to be gradually turned, 
perused, and announced, to benefited and grateful generations, bj 
genius and patience: and especially hy patience; by untiring, 
enthusiastic, self-devoting patience. The progress which has been 
made in art and science is indeed vast. We are ready to think a 
pause must follow; that the goal must he at hand. But there i- 
i' 11 goal : and there can he no pause ; for art and science are in them- 
selves progressive and infinite. They are moving powers, animated 
principles: they are instinct with life ; they are themselves the intel- 
lectual life of man. Nothing can arresl them, which docs not 
jlunge tin 1 entire order of society into barbarism. There is no end 
to truth, no bound to its discovery and application : and a man 
mighl as well think lo build a lowei-, from the top of which he 

could grasp Sirius iii his hand, as prescribe a limit to discovery and 
invention. Never do we more evince our arrogant ignorance, than 
when we boast our knowledge. True Science is modest: for hei 
keen, sagacious eye discerns that there are deep, undeveloped 
mysteries where the vain sciolist sees all plain. We call this an 
age of improvement, a- it is. Bui the Italians, in the age of Leo 

\. and with greal reason, said the same of their age ; the Ro- 
mans, in the time of Cicero, the same of theirs; the Greeks 
in the time of Pericles, the same of theirs ; and the Assyrians and 
Egyptians, in the flourishing periods of their ancienl monarchies, 
the same of their-. In passing from one of these period- to 
another, prodigious -nidi- are often made ; and the vanity of the 
pre» nl age i- apt to flatter itself, that it has climbed to the very sum- 
mit of invention and -kill. A wiser posterity at length finds out, 

that the discover) ^\ i truth, the investigation of one law of 

nature, the contrivance of one machine, the perfection of one 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 259 

art, instead of narrowing, has widened the field of knowledge 
still to be acquired, and given, to those who came after, an ampler 
space, more numerous data, better instruments, a higher point of 
observation, and the encouragement of living and acting in the 
presence of a more intelligent age. It is not a century since the 
number of fixed stars was estimated at about three thousand. 
Newton had counted no more. When Dr. Herschel had com- 
pleted his great telescope, and turned it to the heavens, he calcu- 
lated that two hundred and fifty thousand stars passed through its 
field in a quarter of an hour ! 

It may not irreverently be conjectured to be the harmonious 
plan of the universe, that its two grand elements of mind and mat- 
ter should be accurately adjusted to each other ; that there should 
be full occupation in the physical world, in its laws and properties, 
and in the moral and social relations connected with it, for the 
contemplative and active powers of every created intellect. The 
imperfection of human institutions has, as far as man is concerned, 
disturbed the pure harmony of this great system. On the one 
hand, much truth, discoverable even at the present stage of human 
improvement, as we have every reason to think, remains undis- 
covered. On the other hand, thousands and millions of rational 
minds, for want of education, opportunity and encouragement, have 
remained dormant and inactive, though surrounded on every side 
by those qualities of things, whose action and combination, no 
doubt, still conceal the sublimest and most beneficial mysteries. 

But a portion of the intellect, which has been placed on this 
goodly theatre, is wisely, intently, and successfully active ; ripen- 
ing, even on earth, into no mean similitude of higher natures. 
From time to time, a chosen hand, sometimes directed by chance, 
but more commonly guided by reflection, experiment, and research, 
touches, as it were, a spring until then unperceived ; and, through 
what seemed a blank and impenetrable wall, — the barrier to all 
farther progress, — a door is thrown open into some before unex- 
plored hall in the sacred temple of truth. The multitude rushes 
in, and wonders that the portals could have remained concealed so 
long. When a brilliant discovery or invention is proclaimed, men 
are astonished to think how long they have lived on its confines, 
without penetrating its nature. 



260 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

It is now a hundred years since it was found out that the vapor 
of boiling water is, as we now think it. the most powerful mechani* 
cal agent within the control of man. And vet, oven after the 
contrivance of the steam-engine on a most improved construction, 
and although the thoughts of numerous ingenious mechanicians were 
turned to the subject, and various experiments made, it was left for 
our fellow-citizen Fulton, in a successful application of this agent, 
as brilliant as its first discovery, to produce another engine, — the 
steamboat, — of incalculable utility and power. The entire conse- 
quences of this discovery cannot yet he predicted ; but there is 
one prediction relative to it, and that among the first ever made, 
which has hern most calamitously fulfilled. When the interests of 
Mr Fulton, under the laws of New York, were maintained by Mr 
Emmet at the bar of the legislature of that State, at the close of his 
argument, he turned to his client, in an affecting apostrophe. 
After commending the disinterestedness with which he devoted his 
time, talents and knowledge to enterprises and works of public 
utility, to the injury of his private fortunes, he added: ' Let me 
remind you. however, that you have other and closer ties. I 
know the pain I am about to give, and 1 see the tears I make you 
abed. But by that love 1 speak, — by that love, which, like the 
light of heaven, is refracted in rays of different strength, upon your 
wife and children, which, when collected and combined, forms the 
sunshine of your soul ; — by that love 1 do adjure you, provide in 
time for those dearest objects of your care. Think not 1 would 
instil into your mind a mean or sordid feeling: bul now, that 
wealth is passing through your hands, let me entreat you to hoard 
it while you have it.' And then, after sketching the dangers 
which threatened his interests as guarantied by the law- of the 
State. Mr Emmet prophetically added: 'Yes, my friend, my heart 
bleeds while I utter it. hut I have fearful forebodings, thai you may 
h( n after find in public faith a broken staff for your support, and 
receive from public gratitude a broken heart for your reward.' 
from the time this prediction was uttered, the stupendous conse- 
quences of the invention of Fulton have been, ever) day, more 
and more amply developed. It has broughl into convenient n< ij h- 
borhood with each other some of the remotesl settlements on the 
wan i- of the United States. It has made the Mississippi naviga- 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 261 

ble up stream as well as down, (which it hardly was before,) in 
credibly accelerating, in time of peace, the settlement of its mighty 
valley, and making it henceforth invulnerable in time of war. It 
has added beyond all estimate to the value of the time, and to the 
amount of the capital, of a large portion of the population of the 
country ; and, without impairing the importance of these benefits 
to America, has as signally imparted them, or similar benefits, to 
Europe, and the rest of the civilized world. While these grand 
developments of the character of Fulton's invention have been 
taking place, the life, the estate, the family of the great inventor, 
have, one after another, been sacrificed and crushed. Within a 
few months after the eloquent appeal just recited was made, Fulton 
actually died of disease contracted by exposure in the gratuitous 
service of the public. In a few years, a decision of the Supreme 
Court of the United States scattered the remains of his property to 
the winds ; and twice or thrice, since that period, has an appeal been 
made to Congress, on behalf of his orphan children, for such a 
provision as would spare them from the alternative of charity or 
starvation — and has been made in vain.* 

But it is time to return to the facts with which I was illustrating 
the wonderful advances made, from time to time, in the cultivation 
or application of the most familiar arts. As far back as human 
history runs, the use of the distaff and loom is known ; but it is not 
yet one hundred years since Sir Richard Arkwright was born ; the 
poor journeyman barber, the youngest of thirteen children, who 
began and perfected the most important improvements in the ma- 
chinery for manufacturing cotton, which (as has been stated on 
the most respectable English authority) ' bore the English nation 
triumphantly through the wars of the French revolution,' and are 
unquestionably of greater value to her than all her colonies, from 
Hindostan to Labrador. 

The ocean which lies between America and Europe may be 
crossed in a fortnight ; but, after the fleets of Tyre, of Carthage^of 
Rome, and of the maritime powers of the middle ages, had been, 
for thousands of years, accustomed to navigate the sea, it was 

* An application in favor of the family of Fulton was before Congress, at the time 
this discourse was pronounced, before the Columbian Institute, in the hall of the 
House of Representatives. 



262 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

reserved for a poor Genoese pilot, begging his way from court to 
court, and by the simple process of sailing on one course as long 
a> he had water to float his ship, to discover a new world. 

Our geographical knowledge shows us that we do not, like so 
man) generations of our predecessors, live within the reach of other 
undiscovered continents ; but we do unquestionably live, act, and 
speculate, within the reach of properties and powers of things, 
whose discover) and application (when they take place) will 

eiiiit changes in society, as great as those produced by the magnet, 
the discovery of America, the art of printing, or the steamboat. 

We do doubtless live within the reach of undiscovered worlds of 
science, art, and improvement. No royal permission is requisite to 
launch forth on the broad sea of discovery that surrounds us, — 
most full of aoveltj w here most explored, — and it may vet be reserv- 
ed for the modest and secluded lover of truth and votary of science, 
in the solitude of his humble researches, to lay open such laws ,,|" 
matter, as will affect the condition of the civilized world. 

This, then, is the encouragement we have to engage in any well- 
conceived enterprise for the diffusion of useful knowledge and the 
extension of general improvement. Wherever there is a human 
mind possessed of the common faculties, and placed in a body 
organized with the common senses, there is an active, intelligent 
being, competent, with proper cultivation, to tin- discover; of the 
highesl truths, in the natural, the social, and the political world. 
It i- susceptible of demonstration, — if demonstration were neces- 
sary, — thai the number of useful and distinguished men. which are 
to benefit and adorn society around us, will be exactly proportioned, 
upon the whole, to the means and encouragements to improvement 
existing in the community'; and ever} thing, which multiplies these 

means and encouragi mentS, tends, in the same proportion, to the 

multiplication of inventions and discoveries useful and honorable to 

man. The mind, although it does not stand in i\a'\\ of high cul- 
ture, to the attainment of greal excellence, does yel stand in need 
"I'm, me culture, and cannot thrive and act without it. When it is 
once awakened, and inspired with a consciousness of its own 
powers, and nourished into vigor by the intercourse of kindred 
minds, either through books or living converse, it does n( .t disdain, 
but it nei ib not, further extraneous aid. It ceasi - to be a pupil ; 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 263 

it sets up for itself; it becomes a master of truth, and goes fear- 
lessly onward, sounding its way, through the darkest regions of 
investigation. But it is almost indispensable, that, in some way or 
other, the elements of truth should be imparted from kindred minds ; 
and if these are wholly withheld, the intellect, which, if properly 
cultivated, might have soared with Newton to the boundaries of 
the comet's orbit, is chained down to the wants and imperfections 
of mere physical life, unconscious of its own capacities, and unable 
to fulfil its higher destiny. 

Contemplate, at this season of the year, one of the magnificent 
oak trees of the forest, covered with thousands and thousands of 
acorns. There is not one of those acorns that does not carry 
within itself the germ of a perfect oak, as lofty and as wide spread- 
ing as the parent stock ; which does not enfold the rudiments of a 
tree that would strike its roots in the soil, and lift its branches 
toward the heavens, and brave the storms of a hundred winters. 
It needs for this but a handful of soil, to receive the acorn as it 
falls, a little moisture to nourish it, and protection from violence 
till the root is struck. It needs but these ; and these it does need, 
and these it must have ; and for want of them, trifling as they 
seem, there is not one out of a thousand of those innumerable 
acorns, which is destined to become a tree. 

Look abroad through the cities, the towns, the villages of our 
beloved country, and think of what materials their population, in 
many parts already dense, and every where rapidly growing, is, for 
the most part, made up. It is not lifeless enginery, it is not ani- 
mated machines, it is not brute beasts, trained to subdue the earth : 
it is rational, intellectual beings. There is not a mind, of the 
hundreds of thousands in our community, that is not capable of 
making large progress in useful knowledge ; and no one can pre- 
sume to tell or limit the number of those who are gifted with all 
the talent required for the noblest discoveries. They have natu- 
rally all the senses and all the faculties — I do not say in as high a 
degree, but who shall say in no degree ? — possessed by Newton, 
or Franklin, or Fulton. It is but a little which is wanted to 
awaken every one of these minds to the conscious possession and 
the active exercise of its wonderful powers. But this little, gen- 
erally speaking, is indispensable. How much more wonderful an 



264 I I CKETT'S ORATIONS. 

instrument is an eye than a telescope ! Providence has furnished 
this eye ; but art must contribute the telescope, or the wonders of 
tlu' heavens remain unnoticed. It is for want of the little, that 
human means must add to the wonderful capacity for improvement 
born in man, that by far the greatesl part of the intellect, innate 
in our race, perishes undeveloped and unknown. When an 
acorn falls upon an unfavorable spot, and decays there, we know 
the extent of the loss ; — it is that of a tree, like the one from 
which it fell ; — but when the intellect of a rational being, for 
want of culture, is lost to the great ends for which it was created, 
it is a loss which no one can measure, either for time or for 
eternity. 



LECTURE 

ON THE WORKING Men's PARTY, DELIVERED BEFORE THE CHARLES' 
TOWN LYCEUM, 6tH OCTOBER, 1830. 



Man is, by nature, an active being. He is made to labor. 
His whole organization, — mental and physical, — is that of a hard- 
working being. Of his mental powers we have no conception, 
but as certain capacities of intellectual action. His corporeal fac- 
ulties are contrived for the same end, with astonishing variety of 
adaptation. Who can look only at the muscles of the hand, and 
doubt that man was made to work ? Who can be conscious of 
judgment, memory, and reflection, and doubt that man was made 
to act ? He requires rest, but it is in order to invigorate him for 
new efforts ; to recruit his exhausted powers ; and, as if to show 
him, by the very nature of rest, that it is Means, not End : — that 
form of rest, which is most essential and most grateful, sleep, is 
attended with the temporary suspension of the conscious and act- 
ive powers, — an image of death. Nature is so ordered, as both to 
require and encourage man to work. — He is created with wants, 
which cannot be satisfied without labor ; at the same time, that 
ample provision is made by Providence, to satisfy them with labor. 
The plant springs up and grows on the spot, where the seed was 
cast by accident. It is fed by the moisture, which saturates the 
earth, or is held suspended in the air ; and it brings with it a suffi- 
cient covering to protect its delicate internal structure. It toils not, 
neither doth it spin, for clothing or food. But man is so created, 
that, let his wants be as simple as they will, he must labor to sup- 



'-<><> EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

ply them. If, as is supposed to have been the case in primitive 
he lives upon acorns and water, he must draw the water from 
the spring; and, in many places, he must di>_ r a well in the soil : 
and he must gather the acorns from beneath the oak, and la) up a 
store ol them for winter. He must, in most climates, contrive 
himself sonic kind of clothing of harks or skins; musl construct 
some rude shelter; prepare some kind of bed, and keep up a fire. 
In short, it is well known, that those trihes of our race, which are 
t!n' least advanced in civilization, and whose wants arc the fewest, 
have to labor the hardest for their support ; hut, at the same time, 
it i- equally tine. that, in the most civilized countries, by far the 
greatest amount and variety of work are done; so thai the improve- 

nt. which takes place in the condition of man. consists, not in 

diminishing the amount of labor performed, but in enabling men 

to work more, or more efficiently, in the same time. — A horde of 
savages will pass a week in the most laborious kinds of hunting; 
following the chase day after day; their women, if in company 

with them, carrying their tents and their infant children on their 
backs : and all be worn down by fatigue and famine; and. in the 
end. they will, perhaps, kill a buffalo. The same number of civil- 
ized men and women would, probably, on an average have kept 

more steadil) at work, in their various trades and occupations, hnt 
with much less exhaustion; and the products of their industry 

would have been vastly greater; or. what h the same thin-, much 

e work would have been done. 

It i- tin'', as man rises in improvement, he would be enabled, bj 

his arts and machinery, to satisfy the primary wants of life, with 
less labor; and this may be thoughl to show, at first glance, that 
man was not intended to be a working being : because, iii propor- 
tion as he advances in improvement, less work would he required 
to get a mere livelihood. But here we see a curious provision of 

nature. In proportion as our hare natural want- are satisfied, arti- 
ficial wants, or civilized wants, sho^ themselves. And. in the very 
! state of improvement, it requires a- constant an exertion 

I" Satisf) the new want-, which -row out of the hahils and tast( - 

"I civilized life, as it requires, in savage life, to satisfy hunger ami 
thirst, and keep from freezing. In other words, the innate desire 
"I improving our lition keep u all in a tate of want W i 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 267 

cannot be so well off that we do not feel obliged to work, either to 
ensure the continuance of what we now have, or to increase it. — 
The man, whose honest industry just gives him a competence, 
exerts himself, that he may have something against a rainy day ; — 
and how often do we not hear an affectionate father say, he is 
determined to spare no pains, — to work in season and out of sea- 
son, — in order that his children may enjoy advantages denied to 
himself? 

In this way, it is pretty plain, that Man, whether viewed in his 
primitive and savage state, or in a highly improved condition, is a 
working being. It is his destiny — the law of his nature — to labor. 
He is made for it, — and he cannot live without it ; and the Apostle 
Paul summed up the matter, with equal correctness and point, 
when he said, that " if any would not work, neither should he 
eat." 

It is a good test of principles like these, to bring them to the 
standard of general approbation or disapprobation. There are, in 
all countries, too many persons, who, from mistaken ideas of the 
nature of happiness, or other less reputable causes, pass their time 
in idleness, or in indolent pleasures ; but I believe no state of soci- 
ety ever existed, in which the energy and capacity of labor were 
not commended and admired, or in which a taste for indolent 
pleasure was commended or admired by the intelligent part of the 
community. When we read the lives of distinguished men, in any 
department, we find them almost always celebrated for the amount 
of labor they could perform. Demosthenes, Julius Caesar, Henry 
the Fourth of France, Lord Bacon, Sir Isaac Newton, Franklin, 
Washington, Napoleon, — different as they were in their intellectual 
and moral qualities, — were all renowned as hard workers. We 
read how many days they could support the fatigues of a march ; 
how early they rose, how late they watched ; how many hours 
they spent in the field, in the cabinet, in the court, in the study ; 
how many secretaries they kept employed ; in short, how hard 
they worked. But who ever heard of its being said of a man, in 
commendation, that he could sleep fifteen hours out of the twenty- 
four, that he could eat six meals a day, and that he never got tired 
of his easy-chair ? 

It would be curious to estimate, by any safe standard, the amount 



-Jll- EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

iii \alue of the work of all kinds clone in a community. This, of 
oourse, cannot be done will) ; 1 1 1 \ greal accuracy, The pursuits of 

men arc SO \arioiis. and tin- different kinds of labor performed arc 

so different in the value of their products, thai it bicarcel) possible 
to bring the aggregate to an) scale of calculation. If we would 
form a kind of general judgment of the value of the labor of a 
community, we must look aboul us. All the improvements, which 

we behold, on the face of the earth; all the buildings of everj 
kind in town and country: all tbe vehicles employed on the land 
and water; the roads, the canals, the wharf-, the bridges; all the 

property of all kinds, which is accumulated throughout the world ; 
and all that is consumed, from day to day and from hour to hour, 
to support those who live upon it, — all this is the product of labor ; 
and a proportionate share is the product of the labor of each gen- 
eration. — It is plain that this comprehensive view is one, that 
would admit of being carried out into an infinity of details, which 
would furnish the materials rather for a folio than a lecture. But 
a- it is the taste of the presenl day, to bring every thing down to 
the standard of figures, I will suggest a calculation, which will 
enable us to judge of the value of the labor performed in the com- 
munity in which we live. — Take the population of Massachusetts, 
for the sake of round numbers, at six hundred thousand souls. 1 
presume it will oot be thought extravaganl to assume, that one in -i\ 
performs every da) a good day's work, or its equivalent. II we 
allow nothing lor the labor of live out of six, (and this certain!) 
will cover the cases of those too young and too old to do an) work, 
or who can do only a part of a day's work.) and if we also allow 
nothing for those whose time is worth more than that of the day- 
laborer, we may safel) assume, that the sixth person performs 
dailj a vigorous efficienl day's work of body or mind, by hand or 
with tools, or partly with each, and that this day's work i- worth 
one dollar. This will give us one hundred thousand dollars a day, 

a- the value of the work done in the State of Massachusetts. I 

have no doubt that it is a good deal more, — for this would be \cry 
little more than it COStS the population to support itself, and allows 

scarce an^ thing for accumulation, a good ileal of which is con- 
stant!) taking place. It will, however, sho\i sufficient!) the 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 269 

amount of the labor done in this State, to take it as coming up, at 
least, to one hundred thousand dollars per day. 

I have thus far laid down two propositions : — 

First, that man is, by his nature, a working being ; and, second, 
that the daily value of his work, estimated merely in money, is im- 
mensely great in any civilized community. 

I have made these preliminary remarks, as an introduction to 
some observations, which I propose to submit, in the remainder of 
this lecture, on the subject of ' a working men's party.' — Towards 
the organization of such a party, steps have been taken in various 
parts of the country. It is probable, that a great diversity of views 
exists, among those who have occupied themselves upon the sub- 
ject, in different places. This circumstance, and the novelty of 
the subject in some of its aspects, and its importance in all, have 
led me to think, that we might pass an hour profitably, in its con- 
templation. 

I will observe upon it, in the first place, then, that if, as I have 
endeavored to show, man is by nature a working being, it would 
follow, that a working men's party is founded in the very principles 
of our nature. — Most parties may be considered as artificial in their 
very essence ; many are local, temporary and personal. What 
will all our political parties be, a hundred years hence ? What are 
they now, in nine tenths of the habitable globe ? Mere nonentities. 
— But the working men's party, however organized, is one that 
must subsist, in every civilized country, to the end of time. In 
other words, its first principles are laid in our nature. 

It secondly follows, from what I have remarked above, that the 
working men's party concerns a vast amount of property, in which 
almost every man is interested ; and in this respect it differs from 
all controversies and parties, which end merely in speculation, or 
which end in the personal advancement, and gratification of a few 
individuals. 

The next question, that presents itself, is, What is the general 
object of a working men's party ? I do not now mean, what are 
the immediate steps, which such a party proposes to take ; but 
what is the main object and end, which it would secure. To this 
I suppose I may safely answer, that it is not to carry this or that 
political election ; not to elevate this or that candidate for office, 



270 EVERETT'S ORATION-. 

bul to promote the prosperity and welfare of working men; that is, 
to secure to ever} man disposed to work, the greatest freedom in 
the choice of his pursuit, the greatest encouragemenl and aid in 
pursuing it, the greatest security in enjoying it- fruits: — in other 
words, io make work, in the greatest possible degree, produce 
happim ss. 

The nexl inquiry seems t<> be, Who belong to the working 
men's party? The general answer here is obvious, — All who do 
the work, or arc actuallj willing and desirous to do it, and pre- 
vented only hv absolute inability, such as sickness or natural in- 
firmity. Let us try the correctness of this view, l>\ seeing whom 
it would exclude and whom it would include. 

This ndc. in the first place, would exclude all had men ; thai is, 
those who may work indeed, hut who work for immoral and unlaw- 
ful ends. This is a verj important distinction, and if practically 
applied, and vigorously enforced, il would make the working men's 
partj the purest society, that ever existed since the time of the 
primitive Christians. It is greatly to be feared, thai scarce anj of 
the parties, thai divide the community, arc sufficiently jealous on 
tin- point : and for the natural reason, that it dor- not lie in the 
very nature of the parties. — Thus, at the polls, the vote of one man 
is as good as the vote of another. The vote of the drunkard 
counts one; the vote of the temperate man counts but one. For 
this reason, the mere part) politician, if he can secure the vote, is 
apt not to he very inquisitive aboul the temperance of the voter. 

lie m;i\ e\en prefer the intemperate to the temperate : for to per- 
suade the temperate man to vote with him, he musl give him a 
good reason ; — the other will do it for a good drink. 

Bui the true principle- ofthe working men's part) require, nol 
merely thai a man should work, bul thai he should work in an bon- 
c-t way and for a law fill object. The man, who make- counterfeit 
money, probably works harder than the honesl engraver, who pre- 
pares the bills, for those authorized bj law to issue them. Bul he 
would be repelled with scorn, if he presented himself as a member 
of the working men's party. The thief, who passes his life, and 
gains a wretched, precarious subsistence, l>\ midnight trespasses on 
his neighbor's grounds; bj stealing horses from the -tall, and wood 
from the pile; bj wrenching bars and holts al night, or picking 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 271 

pockets in a crowd, probably works harder, (taking uncertainty 
and anxiety into the calculation, and adding, as the usual conse- 
quence, four or five years in the compulsory service of the state,) 
than the average of men pursuing honest industry, even of the 
most laborious kind : but this hard work would not entitle him to 
be regarded as a member of the working men's party. 

If it be inquired, who is to be the judge, what kind of work is 
not only no title, but an absolute disqualification for admission to 
the working men's party, on the score of dishonesty, we answer, 
that, for all practical purposes, this must be left to the law of the 
land. It is true, that under cover and within the pale of the law, 
a man may do things morally dishonest, and such as ought to shut 
him out of the party. But experience has shown, that it is danger- 
ous to institute an inquisition into the motives of individuals ; and 
so long as a man does nothing which the law forbids, — in a country 
where the people make the laws, — he ought, if not otherwise dis- 
qualified, to be admitted as a member of the party. 

There ought, however, perhaps, to be two exceptions to this prin- 
ciple ; one, in the case of those who pursue habitually a course of life, 
which, though contrary to law, is not usually punished by the law, 
such as persons habitually intemperate. It is plain, that these men 
ought not to be allowed to act with the party, because they would 
always be liable, by a very slight temptation, to be made to act in 
a manner hostile to its interests ; and because they are habitually 
in a state of incapacity to do any intelligent and rational act. 

The other exception ought to be of men who take advantage of 
the law to subserve their own selfish and malignant passions. 
This is done in various ways, but I will allude to but one. The 
law puts it in the power of the creditor, not merely to seize the 
property of the debtor, in payment of the debt, but to consider 
every case of inability as a case of fraudulent concealment, and to 
punish it, as such, by imprisonment. This is often done in a way 
to inflict the greatest possible pain, and in cases in which not only 
no advantage but additional cost accrues to the creditor. A man 
who thus takes the advantage of the law, to wreak upon others his 
malignant passions, ought to be excluded not merely from the 
working men's party, but from the pale of civilized society. 

The next question regards idlers. If we exclude from the work- 



272 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

in- men's party all dishonest and immoral workers, what are we to 
^ay to the case of the idlers? — In general term-, the answer to 
this question is plain; they too must be excluded. With what 
pretence of reason can an idler ask to he admitted into the associa- 
tion of working men, unless lie is willing to qualify himself bi gome 

to work? and then he ceases to he an idler. In fact, the man 

who idles away his time, acts againsl the law of his nature, as a 
working being. It musl be observed, however, that there are few 
cases where a man is merely an idler, [n almost every case, he 
must be something worse, — such as a spendthrift, a gamester, oi 

an intemperate person : a had son. a had husband, and a had father. 
Il there are any persons dependent on him for support ; if lie idles 
away tin' time which he ought to devote to maintaining his wife, 
or his children, or his aged parents, he then becomes a robber; a 
man that steals the bread out of the mouths of his own family, and 
rends the clothes oil' their backs ; and he is as much more criminal 
than the common bighw ay robber, who takes the stranger's purse on 
the turnpike road, as the ties of duty to our parents and children are 
beyond those of common justice between man and man. Hut I 
suppose it would not require much argument to show, that the 
person, who leaves to want those whom he ought to support, even 

if he does not pass liis idle hours in any criminal pursuit, has Q0 
right to call himself a working man. 

There is a third class of men, whose case deserves consideration, 
and who are commonly called busy-bodies. — The) are as different 
from real working men. as light is from darkness. They cannot 
be called idlers, for they are never al rest ; nor yet workers, for 
they pursue no honest, creditable employment. So long as they 
are merelj busy-bodies, and are prompted in their officious, flutter- 
ing, unproductive activity, by no bad motive and no malignant 
m, i I u \ cannot, perhaps, be excluded from the party, though 

thej have really no claim to be admitted into it. I>ut here, too, 

the case of a mere busy-body scarce ever occurs. This chat 
is almost always something more; a dangerous gossip, a tattling 
mischii f-maker, a propagator, too frequently, an inventor of slander. 
He repeats at one fire-side, with additions, what he heard at an- 
other, under the implied oblii ation of confidence ; be is commonlj 
in the 1 1 out rank of all uneas} and incon iderate movement . safel) 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 273 

entrenched behind his neighbor, whom he -pushes into trouble ; and 
he is very fond of writing anonymous libels in the newspapers, on 
men of whom he knows nothing. Such men — and there are too 
many of them — ought to be excluded from the party. 

Shutting out, then, all who work dishonestly, and all who do 
not work at all, and admitting the busy-bodies with great caution, 
the working men's party comprehends all those by whom the work 
of the community is really done ; — all those who, by any kind of 
honest industry, employ the talent which their Creator has given 
them. All these form one great party, one comprehensive society, 
and this by the very law of our nature. Man is not only, as I 
observed in the beginning, a working being ; but he is a being 
formed to work in society ; and if the matter be carefully analyzed, 
it will be found, that civilization, that is, the bringing men out of a 
savage into a cultivated state, consists in multiplying the number of 
pursuits and occupations ; so that the most perfect society is one 
where the largest number of persons are prosperously employed, in 
the greatest variety of ways. In such a society, men help each 
other, instead of standing in each other's way. The farther this 
division of labor is carried, the more persons must unite, harmoni- 
ously, to effect the common ends. The larger the number, on 
which each depends, the larger the number to which each is 
useful. 

This union of different kinds of workmen in one harmonious 
society seems to be laid, in the very structure and organization of 
man. Man is a being consisting of a body and a soul. These 
words are soon uttered, and they are so often uttered, that the 
mighty truth which is embraced in them, scarce ever engages our 
attention. — But man is composed of body and soul. What is 
body ? It is material substance ; it is clay, dust, ashes. Look at 
it, as you tread it, unorganized, beneath your feet ; contemplate it, 
when, after having been organized and animated, it is, by a process 
of corruption, returning to its original state. Matter, in its appear- 
ance to us, is an unorganized, inanimate, cold, dull, and barren 
thing. What it is in its essence, no one but the Being who created 
it knows. The human mind can conceive of it, but in a negative 
way. We say, that the body of man is formed of the clay or dust ; 
because these substances seem to us to make the nearest approach 
34 



21 I i \ BRETT - OB \TI"\-. 

to the total privation oi all the properties of intellect. Such is the 
body of man. — Whal is his soul! — It- i ;sence i- as little known to 
u- as thai uf hody ; but its qualities are angelic, divine. Ii is soul, 
which think-;. r< i ons, invents, remembers', hopes, and loves. It is 
the soul w hich lives ; for \\ hen the soul departs from the body, all 
its vital powers cease; and it is dead; — and what is the bod) 

thru : 

Now the fact, to w hich i wish to call your attention, is, thai 
these two elements, one of which i- akin to the poorest dust on 
w hich w e tread, and the other of w hich is oi die nature of angelic 
and even of divine intelligence, are, in ever) human being, without 
exception, broughl into a mosl intimate and perfeel union. We 
can conceive, thai it mighl have been different, (hid could have 
created matter b) itself and mind b) itself. We believe in the 
existence of incorporeal beings, of a nature higher than man : and 
we behold beneath us. in brutes, plants, and stones, various orders 

of material nature, rising, one above another, in organization : hut 

none of them (as we suppose) possessing mind. — We can imagine 
a world so constituted, that all the intellect would have been by 
it-eli'. pure and disembodied ; and all the material substance by 
itself, unmixed with mind ; and acted upon by mind, as inferior 
beings are supposed to he acted upon b) angels. Bui in consti- 
tuting our race.it pleased the Creator to bring the two elements 

into the closest union ; to lake the bod) from the dusl : th( 
from the highesl heaven : and mould them into one. 

The consequence i-. that the humblesl laborer, who work-- with 

hi- hand-, possesses within him a soul, endowed with precisely the 

same faculties a- those which, in Franklin, in .Newton, or Shak- 

Speare, have been the lighl and the wonder of the world : and. on 
the othei hand, the mo-t gifted and ethereal -cuius, whose mind 

ha- fathomed the depth- of the heavens and comprehended the 
whole circle of truth, is enclosed in a body, subject to the same 
passions, infirmities, and wants, as the man whose life knows no 

alternation hut labor and rest, appetite and indulgence. 

Did it -top here, it would he merel) an astonishing fad in the 
constitution of our natures ; — hut it doe- not stop here. In conse- 
quent of the union of the two principle- in the human frame, 
ever) act thai a man performs, requires the agenc) both oi body 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 275 

and mind. His mind cannot see, but through the optic eye-glass ; 
nor hear, till the drum of his ear is affected by the vibrations of the 
air. If he would speak, he puts in action the complex machinery 
of the vocal organs ; if he writes, he employs the muscular system 
of the hands ; nor can he even perform the operations of pure 
thought, except in a healthy state of the body. A fit of the tooth- 
ache, proceeding from the irritation of a nerve about as big as a 
cambric-thread, is enough to drive an understanding, capable of 
instructing the world, to the verge of insanity. On the other hand, 
there is no operation of manual labor so simple, so mechanical, 
which does not require the exercise of perception, reflection, 
memory, and judgment ; the same intellectual powers, by which 
the highest truths of science have been discovered and illustrated. 

The degree to which any particular action (or series of actions 
united into a pursuit) shall exercise the intellectual powers, on the 
one hand, or the mechanical powers on the other, of course, de- 
pends on the nature of that action. The slave, whose life, from 
childhood to the grave, is passed in the field ; the New Zealander, 
who goes to war, when he is hungry, devours his prisoners, and 
leads a life of cannibal debauch till he has consumed them all, and 
then goes to war again ; the Greenlander, who warms himself with 
the fragments of wrecks and drift-wood thrown upon the glaciers, 
and feeds himself with blubber ; seem all to lead lives requiring 
but little intellectual action ; and yet, as I have remarked, a careful 
reflection would show that there is not one, even of them, who 
does not, every moment of his life, call into exercise, though in an 
humble degree, all the powers of the mind. In like manner, the 
philosopher who shuts himself up in his cell, and leads a contem- 
plative existence, among books or instruments of science, seems to 
have no occasion to employ, in their ordinary exercise, many of 
the capacities of his nature for physical action ; — although he also, 
as I have observed, cannot act, or even think, but with the aid of 
his body. 

The same Creator who made man a mixed being, composed of 
body and soul, having designed him for such a world as that in 
which we live, has so constituted the world, and man who inhabits 
it, as to afford scope for great variety of occupations, pursuits, 
and conditions, arising from the tastes, characters, habits, virtues, 



876 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

ami even dees, of men and communities. Fctf the same n 
that, — though all men arc alike composed of body and soul, pel do 
two men probabl) are exactl) the same in respect to either; — so 
provision has been made. b) the Author of our being, for an infinity 
ol pursuits and employments, calling out, in degrees as various, 
the peculiar powers of both principles. 

I>ni I have ahead) endeavored to show, that there is no pursuit 
and no action that does not require the united operation of both ; 
and this ol itself is a broad natural foundation for the union into one 
interest of all, in the same c lunity, who are employed in hon- 
est work of any kind : viz., that, however various their occupations, 
they are all working with the same instruments, — the organs of the 

body and the power- of the mind. 

Bui we ma) go a step farther, to remark the beautiful process, 
by which Providence has so interlaced and wrought up together 
the pursuits, interests, and wants of our nature, thai the philosopher, 
whose home seems less on earth than among the stars, requires, for 
the prosecution of bis studies, die aid of numerous artificers in va- 
rious branches of mechanical industry ; and. in return, furnishes the 
most important facilities to the humblest branches of manual labor. 
Let us take, a- a single instance, that of astronomical science. It 
m;i\ he safel) said, thai the wonderful discoveries of modern astron- 
omy, and the philosophical system depending upon them, could not 
have existed, but for the telescope. The want of the telescope 
kepi astronomical science in its infanc) anion- the ancients. Al- 
though Pythagoras, one of the earliesl Greek philosophers, by a 
fortunate exercise of sagacity, conceived the elements of the Coper- 
nican system, yet we find no general and practical improvement 
resulting from it. [t was onl) from the period of the discoveries, 

made by the tele-cope, that the -cience ad\ anced. w ith -lire and 

rapid progress. Now the astronomer doe- not make telescopi . I 
presume it would he impossible for a person, who employed in the 
abstracl stud) of astronomical -cience time enough to comprehend 
its profound investigations, to learn and practise the trade of making 
glass. It is mentioned, as a remarkable versatility of talent in a 
few eminent observers, thai the) have superintended the cutting 
and polishing th or mirrors of their own telescopes. But 

I pri Mime, it there never had been a telescope, till some scientific 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 277 

astronomer had learned to mix, melt, and mould glass, such a 
thins; would never have been heard of. It is not less true, that 
those employed in making the glass could not, in the nature of 
things, be expected to acquire the scientific knowledge, requisite 
for carrying on those arduous calculations, applied to bring into a 
system the discoveries, made by the magnifying power of the 
telescope. I might extend the same remark to the other materials, 
of which a telescope consists. It cannot be used to any purpose 
of nice observation, without being very carefully mounted, on a 
frame of strong metal ; which demands the united labors of the 
mathematical instrument-maker and the brass-founder. Here then, 
in taking but one single step out of the philosopher's observatory, 
we find he needs an instrument, to be produced by the united 
labors of the mathematical instrument-maker, the brass-founder, the 
glass-polisher, and the maker of glass, — four trades.* He must also 
have an astronomical clock, and it would be easy to count up half 
a dozen trades, which directly or indirectly are connected in mak- 
ing a clock. But let us go back to the object-glass of the tele- 
scope. A glass factory requires a building and furnaces. The 
man who makes the glass, does not make the building. But the 
stone and brick mason, the carpenter, and the blacksmith, must 
furnish the greater part of the labor and skill, required to construct 
the building. When it is built, a large quantity of fuel, wood and 
wood-coal, or mineral coal of various kinds, or all together, must 
be provided ; and then the materials of which the glass is made, 
and with which it is colored, some of which are furnished by com- 
merce from different and distant regions, and must be brought in 
ships across the sea. We cannot take up any one of these trades, 
without immediately finding that it connects itself with numerous 
others. Take, for instance, the mason who builds the furnace. He 
does not make his own bricks, nor burn his own lime ; in common 
cases, the bricks come from one place, the lime from another, the 
sand from another. The brick-maker does not cut down his own 
wood. It is carted or brought in boats to his brick-yard. The man 
who carts it, does not make his own wagon ; nor does the person, who 

* The allusion is here to the simplest form of a telescope. The illustration would 
be stronger in the case of a reflector. 



278 El (RETT'S OBATIONS. 

brings il in boats, build his own boat The man. who makes the 
wagon, does nol make its tire. The blacksmith, who makes the 
tire, does ool smelt the ore ; and the forgeman, w ho smelts the ore, 
does nol build his own furnace (and there we gel back to the point 
whence we started), nor dig his own mine. The man, who digs 
tlif mine, doc- nol make the pick-axe, with which he digs it ; nor 
the |Him)>. with which he keep- out the water. The man. who 
make- the pump, did nol discover the principle of atmospheric 
pressure, which led to pump-making; thai was done h\ a mathe- 
matician at Florence, experimenting in his chamber, on a glass 
tube. And here we come hack again to our glass; and to an in- 
stance oi the close connexion of scientific research with practical 
art. It is plain, that this enumeration might be pursued, till every 
art and every science were shown to run into ever} other. ]\o 
one can doubl this, who will go over the subject in his own mind, 
beginning with any one of the processes of mining and working 
metal-, o! ship-building, and navigation, and the other branches of 
art and industry, pursued in civilized communities. 

It' then, on the one hand, the astronomer depend- for his tele- 
scope on the ultimate product of SO many arts ; in return, hi- ODS( i- 
\atiou- are the ha-i- of an astronomical System, and of calculations 

of the movements of the heavenl] bodies, which furnish the mari- 
ner with hi- besl guide aero— the ocean. The prudent shipmaster 
would no more think of sailing Tor India, without his Bowditch's 
Practical Navigator, than he would without his compass; and 
this Navigator contains tables, drawn from the highest walk- of 

astronomical science. Every first mate of a Vessel, who work- a 

lunar observation, to ascertain the ship's longitude, employs tables, 

in which the mosl wonderful discoveries and calculations of La 
Place, and New ton. and Bowditch, are interwou n. 

I mention this a- hut one of the cases, in which a-trononiical 
science promotes the service and convenience of common life : and 

perhaps, when we consider the degree to which the modern exten- 
sion oi navigation connect- it-elf with industry in all it- branches, 
this ma) he thought sufficient. I will onl) add. that the cheap 
convenience of an almanac, which enters into the comforts of every 
fireside in the country, could nol be enjoyed, but for the labors and 
studies of the profoundesl philosophers. Not that great learning 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 279 

or talent is now required to execute the astronomical calculations 
of an almanac, although no inconsiderable share of each is needed 
for this purpose ; but because, even to perform these calculations 
requires the aid of tables, which have been gradually formed on 
the basis of the profoundest investigations of the long line of phi- 
losophers, who have devoted themselves to this branch of science. 
For, as we observed on the mechanical side of the illustration, it 
is not one trade alone, which is required to furnish the philos- 
opher with his instrument, but a great variety ; so, on the other 
hand, it is not the philosopher in one department, who creates a 
science out of nothing. The observing astronomer furnishes mate- 
rials to the calculating astronomer, and the calculator derives meth- 
ods from the pure mathematician ; and a long succession of each 
for ages, must unite their labors, in a great result. Without the 
geometry of the Greeks, and the algebra of the Arabs, the infini- 
tesimal analysis of Newton and Leibnitz would never have been 
invented. 

Examples and illustrations equally instructive might be found in 
every other branch of industry. The man who will go into a cot- 
ton mill, and contemplate it from the great water-wheel, that gives 
the first movement, (and still more, from the steam-engine, should 
that be the moving power,) who will observe the parts of the ma- 
chinery, and the various processes of the fabric, till he reaches the 
hydraulic press, with which it is made into a bale, and the canal or 
rail-road by which it is sent to market, may find every branch of 
trade and every department of science literally crossed, intertwined, 
interwoven with every other, like the woof and the warp of the 
article manufactured. Not a little of the spinning machinery is 
constructed on principles drawn from the demonstrations of tran- 
scendental mathematics ; and the processes of bleaching and dying, 
now practised, are the results of the most profound researches of 
modern chemistry. And if this does not satisfy the inquirer, let 
him trace the cotton to the plantation, where it grew, in Georgia or 
Alabama ; the indigo to Bengal ; the oil to the olive-gardens of 
Italy, or the fishing-grounds of the Pacific ocean ; let him consider 
Whitney's cotton-gin ; Whittemore's carding-machine ; the power- 
loom ; and the spinning apparatus ; and all the arts, trades, and 
sciences, directly or indirectly connected with these ; and I believe 



•2H) KVKRETT'S ORATIONS. 

he will soon agree, that one might start from B yard of coarse 
printed cotton, which costs ten cents, and prove out of it, as out 
of a text, that every art and science under heaven bad been con- 
cerned in its fabric. 

I ought here to allude, also, to some of those pursuits which re- 
quire the ability to exercise, al the same time, on the part of the 
same individual, the faculties, both of the intellectual and physical 
nature, — or w hich unite \ erj high and low degrees of mental povi er. 
I have no doubt, thai the talent for drawing and painting, possessed 
b) some nun to such an admirahle degree, depends partly on a pe- 
culiar organic structure of the eye, and of the muscles of tin* hand, 
which gives them their more delicate perceptions of color, and their 
greater >kill in delineation. These, no doubt, are possessed by 
main individuals, who want the intellectual talent, — the poetic fire, 
— required for a great painter. On the other hand, I can conceive 
of a man's possessing the invention and imagination of a painter, 
without the eye and the hand required to embodj on the canvass 
the ideas and images in his mind. When the two unite, they make 
a Raphael or a Titian ; a Wilkie or an Allston. An accomplished 
ajatuary, such as Canova or Chantrey, must, on the one hand, pos- 
sess a soul filled with all grand and lovelj images, and have a 
living conception of ideal beauty ; and. on the other hand, he musl 
be a good stone-cutter, and able to take a hammer and a chisel in 

his hand, ami go to work on a block of marble, and chip it down 

to the lip of Apollo, or the eyelid of Venus. The architeel must 
be practicall} acquainted with all the materials of building, — wood, 
brick, mortar and stone; he must have the courage and skill to 
plant his moles against the heaving ocean, and to hang his ponder- 
ous domes and gigantic arches in the air; while he must have 
taste to combine the rough and scattered blocks of the quarry into 
beautiful and majestic structures ; and discern clearly in his mind's 
eye, before a sledge-hammer has been lifted, the elevation and 

proportions of the temple. The poet mUSl know . with a school- 
ion. the weight of ever} word, and what vowel lid- 
in' >-l smoothly on what consonant ; at the same rime, thai his 
soul must be stored with images, feelings, and thoughts, beyond the 
power of the boldest and most glowing language to do more than 
faintly shadow out. The SUTgeon must, at once, have a mind uat- 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 



281 



urally gifted and diligently trained, to penetrate the dark recesses 
of organic life ; and a nerve and tact, which will enable him to 
guide his knife among veins and arteries, out of sight, in the living 
body of an agonizing, shrieking fellow creature, or to take a lancet 
in his left hand, and cut into the apple of the eye. The lawyer 
must be able to reason from the noblest principles of human duty, 
and the most generous feelings of human nature ; he must fully 
comprehend the mighty maze of the social relations ; he must car- 
ry about with him a stock of learning almost boundless ; he must 
be a sort of god to men and communities, who look up to him, in 
the hour of the dearest peril of their lives and fortunes ; and he 
must, at the same time, be conversant with a tissue of the most 
senseless fictions and arbitrary technology, that ever disgraced a 
liberal science. The merchant must be able to look, at the same 
moment, at the markets and exchanges of distant countries and 
other hemispheres, and combine considerations of the political con- 
dition, the natural wants, the tastes and habits of different parts of 
the world ; and he must be expert at figures, — understand book- 
keeping by double entry, — and know as well how to take care of 
a quarter chest of tea as a cargo of specie. The general-in-chief 
must be capable of calculating, for a twelve-month in advance, the 
result of a contest, in which all the power, resource, and spirit of 
two great empires enter and struggle, on land and by sea ; and he 
must have an eye, that can tell, at a glance, and on the responsi- 
bility of his life, how the stone walls, and trenched meadows, the 
barns, and the woods, and the cross-roads of a neighborhood, will 
favor or resist the motions of a hundred thousand men, scattered 
over a space of five miles, in the fury of the advance, the storm of 
battle, the agony of flight, covered with smoke, dust and blood. 

It was my intention to subject the art of printing to an analysis 
of the trades, arts and sciences connected with it ; but I have not 
time to do it full justice, and the bare general idea need not be re- 
peated. I will only say that, beginning with the invention which 
bears, in popular tradition, the name of Cadmus, — I mean the in- 
vention of alphabetical signs to express sounds, — and proceeding to 
the discovery of convenient materials for writing, and the idea of 
written discourse ; thence to the preparation of manuscript books ; 
and thence to the fabric, on a large scale, of linen and cotton pa- 
35 



282 i \ EHETT'S ORATIONS. 

per. th«' invention of movable i\ pes 3 and the printing press, the art 
of engraving on metal, of stereotype printing, and of the power 
press, — we have a series of discoveries, branching out into others in 
every department of human pursuit; connecting the highesl philo- 
sophical principles with the results of mere manual labor, and pro- 
ducing, in the end, thai system of diffusing and multiplying the 
expression of thought, which is. perhaps, the glory of our human 
nature. Pliny said, that the Egyptian reed was the support <>n 
which the immortal tame of man rested. He referred to its use in 
the manufacture of paper. We may, with greater justice, say as 
much of the manufacture of paper from rags, and of the printing 

press, neither of which was known to Pliny. But with all the 
splendor of modern discoveries and improvements in science and 
art, I cannot hut think that he who. in the morning of the world. 
first conceived the idea of representing sounds by visible signs, 
took the most important step in the march of improvement. This 
sublime conception was struck out in the infancy of mankind. 
The name of its author, his native country . and the time when he 
lived, are know n onl\ by very uncertain tradition ; hut though all 
the intelligence of ancient and modern times, and in the most im- 
proved countries, has been concentred into a focus, burning and 
blazing upon this one spot, it has uever been able to reduce it to 
au\ simpler elements, nor to improve, in the slightest degree, upon 
the original suggestion of Cadmus. 

In what 1 have thus far submitted to you, you will probablj 
have remarked, that I have illustrated chiefly the connexion with 
each other of die \ arious branches of science and art ; of the intel- 
lectual and physical principles. I have not distinctly shown the 
connexion of the moral principle, in all its great branches, with 
both. Thi- subject would well form the matter of a separate essa y. 
Bui it- elementary ideas are few and plain. The arts and sciences, 
whose connexion we have pointed out. it is plain, require lor their 
cultivation a civilized state of society. They cannot thrive in a 
community which is not in a state "f regular political organization, 
under an orderly system of government, uniform administration <>f 
law -. ami a general obsen ance of the dictates of public and social 
morality. Farther, such a communit) cannot exist without insti- 
tutions of various kinds lor elementary, professional, and mural ed- 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 283 

ucation ; and connected with these, are required the services of a 
large class of individuals, employed in various ways, in the business 
of instruction ; from the meritorious schoolmaster, who teaches the 
little child its A, B, C, to the moralist, who lays down the great 
principles of social duty for men and nations, and the minister of 
divine truth, who inculcates those sanctions, by which God himself 
enforces the laws of reason. There must also be a class of men, 
competent by their ability, education, and experience, to engage in 
the duty of making and administering the law ; for, in a lawless so- 
ciety, it is impossible that any improvement should be permanent. 
There must be another class competent to afford relief to the sick, 
and thus protect our frail natures from the power of the numerous 
foes that assail them. 

It needs no words to show, that all these pursuits are, in reality, 
connected with the ordinary work of society, as directly as the 
mechanical trades by which it is carried oh. For instance, nothing 
would so seriously impair the prosperity of a community, as an un- 
sound and uncertain administration of justice. This is the last and 
most fatal symptom of decline in a state. A community can bear 
a very considerable degree of political despotism, if justice is duly 
administered between man and man. But where a man has no 
security, that the law will protect him in the enjoyment of his 
property ; where he cannot promise himself a righteous judgment 
in the event of a controversy with his neighbor ; where he is not 
sure, when he lies down at night, that his slumbers are safe, there 
he loses the great motives to industry and probity ; credit is shak- 
en ; enterprise disheartened, and the state declines. The profession, 
therefore, which is devoted to the administration of justice, renders 
a service to every citizen of the community, as important as to 
those whose immediate affairs require the aid of counsel. 

In a very improved and civilized community, there are also nu- 
merous individuals, who, without being employed in any of the 
common branches of industry, or of professional pursuit, connect 
themselves, nevertheless, with the prosperity and happiness of the 
public, and fill a useful and honorable place in its service. Take, 
for instance, a man like Sir Walter Scott, who, probably, never did 
a day's work in his life, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, 
and who has for some years retired from the subordinate station he 



96 I EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

filled in the profession of the law, as sheriff of the county and 
clerk of the Court He has written and pubhshed at least two 
hundred volumes of wide circulation. \\ hat a vasl amount of the 
industry of the community is thereby put in motion! — The book- 
sellers, printers; paper-makers, press-makers, type-makers, book- 
binders, leather-dressers, ink-makers, and various other artisans re- 
quired, to print, publish, and circulate the hundreds and thousands 
of volumes of the different works which be has written, must be 
almost numberless. I have not the least doubt, that, since the se- 
ries of his publications begun, if all whose industry,-* — directlj or 
remotely. — has been eoneerned in them, not only in Great Britain, 
hut in America, and on the continent of Europe, could he brought 
together, and stationed side hy side, as the inhabitants of the same 
place, they would form it very considerable town. Such a person 
may fairly be ranked as a working man. 

And yet I take this to be the least of Sir Walter Scott's deserts. 
I have said nothing of the service rendered to everj class, and to 
ev< r. individual in every class, by the writer, who beguiles of their 
tediousness the dull hours of life: who animates the principle of 
goodness within us, by glowing pictures of struggling virtue; who 

furnishes our young men and women with looks, which they mav 

rend with interest, and not have their morals poisoned as they read 
then. Our habits, our principles, our characters. — whatever may 
be our pursuit in life, — depend very much on the nature of oux 
youthful pleasures, and on the mode in which we learn to pass our 
leisure hours. And he who. with the blessing of Providence, has 
been able, by his mental efforts, to present virtue in her strong at- 
traction-, and vice in her native deformity, to the rising generation, 
ha- rendered m service to the public, greater even than his. who in- 
d the steam-engine, or the mariner's compass. 
I have thus endeavored to show, in a plain manner, that there is 

B close and cordial union between the various pursuits and occupa- 
tions, which receive the attention of men in a civilized community : 

— that they are links of the same chain, every one of which is 

essential to its strength. 

It will follow, as a necessarj consequence; as the dictate ol rea- 
son and as the law of nature: — that every man in society, whatev- 
er his pursuit, who devotes himself to it, with an honest purpose, 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 285 

and in the fulfilment of the social duty which Providence devolves 
upon him, is entitled to the good fellowship of each and every oth- 
er member of the community ; — that all are the parts of one whole, 
and that between those parts, as there is but one interest, so there 
should be but one feeling. 

Before I close this lecture, permit me to dwell for a short time 
on the principle, which I have had occasion to advance above, that 
the immortal element of our nature, — the reasoning soul, — is the 
inheritance of all our race. As it is this which makes man superi- 
or to the beasts that perish ; so it is this, which, in its moral and 
intellectual endowments, is the sole foundation for the only distinc- 
tions between man and man, which have any real value. This 
consideration shows the value of institutions for education and for 
the diffusion of knowledge. It was no magic, no miracle, which 
made Newton, and Franklin, and Fulton. It was the patient, ju- 
dicious, long-continued cultivation of powers of the understanding, 
eminent, no doubt, in degree, but not differing in kind, from those 
which are possessed by every individual in this assembly. 

Let every one, then, reflect, especially every person not yet 
past the forming period of his life, that he carries about in his 
frame, as in a casket, the most glorious thing, which, this side 
heaven, God has been pleased to create, — an intelligent spirit. To 
describe its nature, to enumerate its faculties, to set forth what it 
has done, to estimate what it can do, would require the labor oi a 
life devoted to the history of man. It would be vain, on this occa- 
sion, and in these limits, to attempt it. But let any man compare 
his own nature with that of a plant, of a brute beast, of an idiot, of 
a savage ; and then consider that it is in mind alone, and the de- 
gree to which he improves it, that he differs essentially from any of 
them. 

And let no one think he wants opportunity, encouragement, or 
means. I would not undervalue these, any or all of them ; but, 
compared with what the man does for himself, they are of little 
account. Industry, temperance, and perseverance are worth more 
than all the patrons that ever lived in all the Augustan ages. It is 
these that create patronage and opportunity. The cases of our 
Franklin and Fulton are too familiar to bear repetition. Consider 
that of Sir Humphrey Davy, who died last year, and who was, in 



286 i \ i ri ii'- ob i noire. 

some departments of science, the firsl philosopher of the age.* He 
was bora at Penzance in Cornwall, one of the darkesl corners o\ 
England : his father was a carver of wooden images for signs, and 
6gure-heads, and chimney-pieces. He himself was apprenticed to 
an apothecary, and made his firsl experiments in chemistry with 
bis master's phials and gallipots, aided l>\ an old syringe, which 
bad been given him l»\ the surgeon of a French vessel, wrecked on 
the Land's End. From the shop of the apothecary, he was trans- 
ferred to tin' otiicr of a surgeon ; and never appears to have had 
an)' other education than that o( a Cornish school, in his boyhood. 
Swrli was the beginning oi the career of tin- man. who. at the age 
oi tw ent\ -tw o. w a- selected, In our o\i d country man, I Jounl Rum- 
ford, (himself a self-taught benefactor of mankind,) to till the chair 
of chemistry at the Royal Institution, in London; such was the 
origin ami education of the man who discovered the metallic basis 

o\ tht> alkalis and the earths ; in\ ented the -afet\ -lamp : and placed 

himself, in a few years, in the chair of the Royal Society o( Iah\- 
don, and at the head of the chemists of Europe. Sir Humphrey 
Davy's most brillianl discoveries were effected bj hi- skilful appli- 
cation of the galvanic electricity, — a principle, whose existence had 
been detected, a few years before, by an Italian philosopher, from 
noticing the contractions of a Grog's limb; — a fact, winch shows 

how near US, in ever) direction, the mOSl CUrioUS facts he -caltcicd 

by nature. With an apparatus, contrived by himself, to collect 
and condense tin- powerful agent, Sir Humphrey succeeded in de- 
composing the earths and the alkali- : and in extracting from com- 
mon potash, the metal (before unknown) which forms it base; — 

ssing, at 7(1 of the thermometer, the lu-tre and general appear- 
ance of mercury; at 50°, the appearance of polished silver, and 
the softness of w ax ; so lighl that it sw ims in water : and so inflam- 
mable that it take- tire when thrown on ice. 

These are, perhaps, but brillianl novelties; though connected, 

no doubt, in the great chain of cause and effect, w itli principle- of 

art ami science, conducive to the service of man. Rut the inven- 
tion "i 1 1 ir safety-lamp, which enables the miner to walk with safe- 

* The sketch of Sir Hnmphrej Davy, which follows, to the end of the lectore, 
i- abridged from the irtk le ed the \nnoal Bktgraph} . for 1880. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 287 

ty through an atmosphere of explosive gas, and has already pre- 
served the lives of hundreds of human beings, is a title to glory 
and the gratitude of his fellow men, which the most renowned des- 
troyer of his race might envy. 

The counsels of such a man, in his retirement and meditation, 
are worth listening to. I am sure you will think I bring this lec- 
ture to the best conclusion, by repeating a sentence from one of 
his moral works : — 

' I envy,' says he, ' no quality of the mind or intellect in others ; 
not genius, power, wit, or fancy ; but if I could choose what 
would be most delightful, and I believe, most useful to me, I should 
prefer a firm religious belief to every other blessing.' 



AN 



ADDRESS 

DELIVERED AS THE INTRODUCTION TO THE FRANKLIN LECTURES, 
IS BOSTON, NOVEMBER 14, 1831. 



Notwithstanding the numerous institutions, for promoting 
useful knowledge, in our community, it was still found, that many 
wi ic excluded from the benefit of them. The number of persons 
thai ran be accommodated in any one hall, is, of course, limited ; 
and it has been thought desirable to make the attempt to provide 
an additional course of lectures, on the various branches of useful 
knowledge, for the benefit of those, who have nol had it in their 
power, for this or an} other reason, to obtain access to the other 
institutions, which have set so praiseworthy an example, in this 
work of public utility. We are assembled, this evening, to mak ! 
the beginning of this new course of popular instruction. 

The plan of this course of lectures was suggested at so late a 
period, this year, thai it may not. perhaps, be possible, the presenl 
season, to earn it fully into effect, in such a manner as is wished 
and designed, in reference to the choice and variety of subjects. 
It is intended, eventually, that it should extend to the various 
branches of natural science. It will imparl useful information, rel- 
ative to the Earth, the Air, and the Ocean ; the wonders of the 
heavens ; and the mineral treasures beneath the surface of the globe. 
It maj extend to the differenl branches of natural history, and ac- 
quaint you with the boundless variety of the animated creation. 
The various properties of natural bodies will form a prominent sub- 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 289 

ject of consideration, as the basis of so many of the arts and trades, 
and the sources from which so many of the wants of man are sup- 
plied. In like manner, those natural powers and properties of mat- 
ter, the agency of fire, water, steam, and weight, which, in their va- 
rious combinations, produce the wonders of improved machinery, 
by which industry is facilitated, and the most important fabrics are 
furnished cheaply and abundantly, will not be overlooked. It may 
be supposed, that a due share of attention will be paid to the geo- 
graphical survey of the globe, to the history of our own race, the 
fortunes of the several nations, into which mankind have been 
divided, and the characters of great and good men, who, long after 
they have departed from life, survive in the gratitude and admira- 
tion of their fellow-men. A general and intelligible view of the 
constitution and laws of the country, in which we have the happi- 
ness to live, tending, as it will, to enlighten us in the discharge of 
our duties as citizens, will no doubt be presented to you, by some, 
who will take a part in these lectures. Nor will they, I venture 
to hope, be brought to a close, without having occasionally directed 
your thoughts to those views of our common nature, which belong 
to us as rational and immortal beings, and to those duties and rela- 
tions which appertain to us as accountable agents. 

The general plan of these lectures extends to these and all other 
branches of sound and useful knowledge ; to be treated in such 
order, as circumstances may suggest ; and with such variety and 
selection of subjects and fulness of detail, as the convenience of the 
lecturers and the advantage of the audience may dictate. They 
have been called the Franklin Lectures, in honor of our distin- 
guished townsman, the immortal Franklin, the son of a tallow- 
chandler, and the apprentice to a printer in this town ; — a man, 
who passed all his early years, and a very considerable portion of 
his life, in manual industry ; and who was chiefly distinguished by 
his zealous and successful efforts for the promotion of useful knowl- 
edge. His name has given lustre to the highest walks of science, 
and adorns one of the proudest pages of the history of our country, 
and the world. But we have thought it was still more a name of 
hope and promise, for an institution like this, which aims to pro- 
mote useful knowledge, (the great study of his life,) among that 
36 



290 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

class of our fellow-citizens, from which it was ever his pride himself 
to have sprung. 

It would seem, al the commencement of a course of public in- 
struction of this kind, a pertinenl inquiry, Why should we endeavor 
to cultivate and inform our mind-, bj the pur-nit of know ledge : 

This question, to which the good sense of every individual 
furnishes, without meditation, some general reply, demands a full 
and careful answer. 1 shall endeavor, in this address, to state 
some of the reasons, which go to furnish such an answer. 

All men should seek to cultivate and inform their mind-. I>\ the 
pursuit of useful knowledge, as the great means of happiness and 
usefulness. 

All other things being equal, the pursuit and attainment of 
knowledge arc at the time, the suresl source of happiness. I do 
not mean, that knowledge will make up for the want of the neces- 
saries and comforts of life : it will not relieve pain, heal sickness, 
nor bring back lost friends. But if knowledge will not do this. 
ignorance will do it -till less. And it ma\ even he affirmed, and 
all who have made the experiment themselves will testify to the 
truth of thr remark, that nothing tend- more to soothe the wounded 
feelings 3 to steal away the mind from it- troubles, and to till up the 
weariness of a sick chamber and a sick bed, than, for instance, 
some intelligible, entertaining, u r «^><l hook, read or listened to. 

But knowledge is -till more important, as the mean- of being 
useful : and the besl part of the happiness, which it procure- u-. i- 
of that purer and higher kind, which Hows from the consciousness 
that, in some way or other, by good example or positive service, 
we have done -ood lo our fellow -men. One of the greatest mod- 
ern philosophers said, thai hnowledgi is /><>tnr: bui it is power 
because it is usefulness. It gives men influence over their fellow- 
men, because it enables it- pos essors to instruct, to counsel, to 
direct, to please, and to serve their fellow-men. Nothing of this 
can he done, without the cultivation and improvement of the 
mind. 

It i- tin- mind, which enables us to be useful, even with our 
bodily power-. What i- Strength without know It d^e to appl) ii : 
What are the curiouslj organized hand-, without skill, to direct 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 



291 



their motion ? The idiot has all the bodily organs and senses of 
the most intelligent and useful citizen. 

It is through mind, that man has obtained the mastery of nature 
and all its elements, and subjected the inferior races of animals to 
himself. Take an uninformed savage, a brutalized Hottentot, in 
short, any human being, in whom the divine spark of reason has 
never been kindled to a flame ; and place him on the sea-shore, in 
a furious storm, when the waves are rolling in, as if the fountains 
of the deep were broken up. Did you not know, from certain 
experience, that man, by the cultivation of his mind, and the appli- 
cation of his useful arts, had actually constructed vessels, in which 
he floats securely on the top of these angry waves, you would not 
think it possible that a being, like that we have mentioned, could 
for one moment resist their fury. It is actually related of some of 
the North American Indians, a race of men, who are trained, from 
their infancy, to the total suppression of their emotions of every 
kind, and who endure the most excruciating torments, at the stake, 
without signs of suffering, that when they witnessed, for the first 
time, on the western waters of the United States, the spectacle of 
a steamboat under way, moving along without sails or oars, and 
spouting fire and smoke, even they could not refrain from exclama- 
tions of wonder. Hold out a handful of wheat, or Indian corn, to 
a person wholly uninformed of their nature, and ignorant of the 
mode of cultivating them, and tell him, that by scattering these 
dry kernels abroad, and burying them in the cold clamp earth, you 
can cause a harvest to spring up, sufficient for a winter's supply of 
food, and he will think you are mocking him, by vain and extrava- 
gant tales. But it is not the less true, that in these, and in every 
other instance, it is the mind of man, possessed of the necessary 
knowledge and skill, that brings into useful operation, for the supply 
of human want, and the support and comfort of human life, the 
properties and treasures of the natural world, the aid of inferior 
animals, and even our own physical powers. 

When, therefore, we improve our minds, by the acquisition of 
useful knowledge, we appropriate to ourselves, and extend to 
others, to whom we may impart our knowledge, a share of this 
natural control over all other things, which Providence has granted 
to his rational children. 



292 I * I.RETT'S ORATIONS. 

It cannot, il is true, be expected to fall to the lot of many indi- 
viduals, b) extending their knowledge of the properties and laws 
of the natural world, to strike out new discoveries and inventions, 
of the highest importance. Ii is as much as raosl men can hope, 
and promise themselves, to be enabled to share the comfort and 
benefit of the unnumbered improvements, which, from the begin- 
ning of time, have been made b) others; and which, taken to- 
gether, make up the civilization of man. Still, dine arc examples, 
in almost ever} age, of men, who, by the happy effects of their 
individual pursuil of useful knowledge, have conferred great benefits 
upon all mankind. I presume, thai in consequence of the success 
ofArkwright, in inventing the machinery for spinning cotton, of 
( Jartvi right, in inventing the power-loom, and our ow a countrj man 
Whitney, in inventing a machine for preparing cotton, the expense 
of necessary clothing is diminished two thirds for every man in 
Europe and America. In other word-, the useful knowledge 
acquired and imparted to the world, by these three men, has ena- 
bled every man. woman, and child in the civilized world, as far as 
clothing is concerned, to live at one third of the former cost. We 
ruck with astonishment when we behold these curious ma- 
chines; when we look, for instance, al a watch, and see a lew 
brass wheels, put in motion b) a little bil of elastic steel, counting 
out the hour- and minutes, bj night and b) day, and even enabling 
the navigator to tell how man) mile- he has sailed, upon the waste 
ocean, where there are no mark- or monuments, by which he can 
measure his progress. 'Jut how much more wonderful is the mind 

of man. which, in the silence of the closet, turned in upon itself, 

and deepl) meditating upon the properties and laws of matter, has 

contrived this wonderful machine ! 

The invention of the power-loom, by Mr Cartwright, beautiful!) 
illustrati - the strength and reach of the intellectual principle, reso- 
lutely applied to a given object. In consequence of Arkwright's 
machinery for spinning, il was soon found, that there would be a 
difficulty in weaving all the yarn that could be spun. It wa- 
remarked in a company, where Mr Cartwright was present, in 
1784, that, in order to remedy this evil, Mr Arkwrighl must exer- 
cise his ing( iiuitv. and invent a weaving mill, in order to work up 
iiit yarn, which hould be -pun in his pinning mills. The sub- 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 293 

ject was discussed ; and it was pronounced by the gentlemen pres- 
ent, who were manufacturers from Manchester, in England, to be 
impossible. Mr Cartwright thought otherwise : he said there had 
been lately exhibited in London, a machine for playing chess ; and 
he felt quite sure, that it could not be more difficult to construct a 
machine to weave cloth, than a machine, which could go through 
all the movements of such a complicated game. Mr Cart- 
wright was a clergyman, forty years old, and had never given 
his attention to the subject of machinery. This subject, how- 
ever, was so strongly on his mind, that some time afterwards, 
he resolved to make the attempt, to invent a weaving ma- 
chine. He had not, at that time, it appears, ever seen even a 
common loom. But reasoning upon the nature of the processes, 
necessary to be gone through to cross the threads, in such a way 
as to make a piece of cloth, he hit upon the plan of a loom, and, 
with the assistance of a carpenter and blacksmith, he made one. 
It was a very rude machine. ' The warp,' says Mr Cartwright, 
' was laid perpendicularly ; the reed fell with a force of at least half 
a hundred weight, and the springs which threw the shuttle, were 
strong enough to throw a congreve rocket.' Besides this, it requir- 
ed the strength of two powerful men to work it, and that at a slow 
rate, and for a short time. But the principle was there. Mr 
Cartwrieht now went and examined the looms of common form, 
and soon succeeded in constructing one very nearly resembling the 
power-looms which are now in use. In the account of this inter- 
esting invention, which I am quoting,* it is said that ' Dr Cart- 
wright's children still remember often seeing their father, about this 
time, walking to and fro, in deep meditation, and occasionally 
throwing bis arms from side to side, on which they used to be told, 
that he was thinking of weaving and throwing the shuttle.' Some 
time after he had brought his first loom to perfection, a manufactu- 
rer, who had called upon him to see it at work, after expressing 
his admiration at the ingenuity displayed in it, remarked, that won- 
derful as Mr Cartwright's mechanical skill was, there was one 
thing that would effectually baffle him, and that was the weaving 
of patterns in checks, or, in other words, the combining in the same 

* Library of Entettaining Knowledge, Vol. viii, p. 347. Second American edi- 
tion. 



•J!> I i:\ ER] i i »S OB LTIONS. 

web, of a pattern or fancy figure, w itli the crossing colors thai make 
die check. IVf r Cartwrighl made no replj to this observation, at 
the time; but, some weeks after, on receiving a second visit, from 
the same person, he had the pleasure of showing him a piece of 
muslin, of the description mentioned, beautifully woven bj machine- 
ry. The man was so much astonished, that be declared, that 
something more than human agency must have been concerned in 
the fabric. 

The wonderful results ol the sagacitj and perseverance <>f Ful- 
ton, in carrying into effecl the conceptions of his mind, en the 
subject of -train navigation, still more nobly illustrate the creative 
pov* er of the human intellect : but it is a matter too familiar to need 
comment. 

I!nt it must not be supposed, from the instances I have chosen, 
to -I low the amount of good, which ma\ be done h\ the exercise 
of the mental powers, that it is confined to the material comforts 
of life; to steamboats, loom-, or machinery for spinning. Far 
from it. The true and mosl peculiar province of it- efficacy is the 
moral condition. Think ^\ the inestimable good conferred on all 
Ibcceeding generations, bj the earl} settlers of America, who first 
established the system of public schools, where instruction should 
be furnished, gratis, to all the children in the community. No 
such thing was before known in the world. There were schools 
and colleges, supported l>_\ funds, which had been bequeathed by 
charitable individuals; and. in consequence, mosl of the common 
schools of this kind in Europe, were regarded as a kind of pauper 
establishments, to which it was not respectable to have recourse. 
So deep-rooted is this idea, that, when 1 have been applied to for 
information, as to our public schools, from those parts of the United 
S 5, where no such system exists, 1 have frequently found it hard 
to obtain credit, when I have declared, thai there was nothing dis- 
reputable, in the public opinion lure, in sending children to schools 
supported at the public charge. The idea of such schools, there- 
fore, when it firsl crossed tin- mind- ofour forefathers, was entirely 
original ; hut how much ol the prosperity and happiness ol their 
children, and posterity, has flowed from this living spring ol public 
intelligence! So. too, the plan ol Sunday schools, which have 
proved a blessing of inestimable value, in Europe and America. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 295 

and particularly to thousands, who are deprived of the advan- 
tages of other institutions. It is probable, that instruction is now 
given, in the Sunday schools, to more than a million and a half of 
pupils, by more than one hundred and fifty thousand teachers. 
This plan was the happy suggestion of an humble individual, — a 
printer, — who contemplated, at first, nothing but the education of 
the destitute and friendless children in his immediate neighborhood. 
After laboring in this noble field of usefulness for twenty years, and 
among die class of population most exposed to the temptations to 
crime, he had the satisfaction of being able to say, that out of 
three thousand scholars, he had heard of hut one, who had been 
sent to jail, as a criminal.* Who would not he ashamed to com- 
pare the pure and happy renown of the man, who had extended, 
by the suggestion of this simple, but before untried plan of educa- 
tion, the blessings of instruction to a million and a half of his fel- 
low-creatures, with the false and unmerited glory, which has been 
awarded to conquerors, whose wars have hurried their millions of 
victims to cruel and untimely death ! 

This topic might be illustrated, perhaps, still more powerfully, 
by depicting the evils which flow from ignorance. These are 
deplorable enough in the case of the individual ; although, if he 

* See a very interesting address, at the celebration of the Sunday School jubilee, 
or the fiftieth year from the institution of Sunday schools, by Robert Raikes: deliv- 
ered at Charleston, S. C, Sept. 14, 1831, by the Hon. Thomas Smith Grimke. I 
find, however, the following statement in a public print, of the accuracy of which I 
have no means of judging: — 

' The credit of originating these institutions has usually been given to Mr Raikes, 
a newspaper proprietor of Gloucester, who died some years ago. It now appears, 
however, from statements and documents of unquestionable authenticity, that the plan 
ol* the first school of this description, which was established in Gloucester, in 1780, 
originated with the Rev. Thomas Stock, head master of the cathedral school of that 
city. Mr Stock, who was in narrow circumstances, communicated the details of 
his plan to Mr Raikes, when the latter assisted him with his purse; and, having ta- 
ken a very active and zealous pint, in promoting the establishment of Sunday schools, 
he ultimately obtained all the merit of being their founder. Mr Raikes, who is un- 
doubtedly entitled to much credit, for his benevolent exertions in the cause of edu- 
cation, lived to see 250,000 children enrolled in these schools. The number now 
enjoying the benefit of instruction on the Sabbath, in England, is 1,250,000. At 
Birmingham, the system has been carried to a much greater extent, than in any oth- 
er town in England, nearly 13,000 Sunday school pupils having been mustered there, 
on the occasion of the late jubilee.' 



296 K\ KKKTT'S ORATIONS. 

live surrounded by an intelligent community, the disastrous conse- 
quences arc limited. Hut the general ignorance of large cumbers 
and entire classes of men, acting under the unchastened stimulus 
of the passions, and excited by the various causes of discontent, 
which occur in the progress of human affairs, is often productive 
of scenes, which make humanitj shudder. I know not, that I 
could produce a more pertinent illustration of 1 1 1 i — truth, than raaj 
be found in the following extracl from a foreign journal. It re- 
lates to the outrages, committed by the peasantry, in a pari of 
Hungary, in consequence of the ravages of the cholera in that 
region. 

'The suspicion, that the cholera was caused by poisoning the 
wells, was universal among the peasantry of the counties of Zips 
and Zemplin, and every one was fully convinced of its truth. The 
first commotion arose in Klucknow, where, it is said, some peasants 
died in consequence of taking the preservatives; whether by an 
immoderate use of medicine, or whether they thought they w ere to 
take chlorate of lime internally, is not known. This story, with a 
Midden and violent breaking out of cholera at Klucknow, led the 
ptasantS tO a notion of the poisoning of the wells, which spread 
like lightning. in the sequel, upon the attack of the estate of 

Count Czaki, a servant of the chief bailiff was on the point of be- 
ing murdered, when, to save his life, he offered to disclose some- 
thing important, tie said, that he received from his master two 
pound, of poisonous powder, with orders to throw it into the wells, 
and, with an axe over his head, took oath publicly in tin 1 church, 
to the truth of his statement. These circumstances, and the fact. 

that the pea-ant-, when they forcibly entered the houses of the 

land-owners, everj where found chlorate of lime, which the) took 
for the poisonous powder, confirmed their suspicions, and drove the 
people to madness. In tins state of excitement, they committed 
the most appalling i Thus, for instance, when a detach- 

ment of thirty soldiers, headed by an ensign, attempted t<> restore 
order in Klucknow , the peasants, who were ten times their num- 
II upon them : the soldiers were released, but the ensign was 
bound, tortured with scissors and knives, then beheaded, and his 
I on a pike, a- a trophy. A civil officer, in company 
witii the military. wa> drowned, his carriage broken, and chlorate 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 297 

of lime being found in the carriage, one of the inmates was com- 
pelled to eat it till he vomited blood, which again confirmed the 
notion of poison. On the attack of the house of the Lord at 
Klucknow, the Countess saved her life by piteous entreaties ; but 
the chief bailiff, in whose house chlorate of lime was unhappily 
found, was killed, together with his son, a little daughter, a clerk, 
a maid, and two students, who boarded with him. So the bands 
went from village to village ; wherever a nobleman or a physician 
was found, death was his lot ; and in a short time, it was known 
that the high constable of the county of Zemplin, several counts, 
nobles, and parish priests had been murdered. A clergyman was 
hanged, because he refused to take an oath that he had thrown poi- 
son into the well ; the eyes of a countess were put out, and inno- 
cent children cut to pieces. Count Czaki, having first ascertained 
that his family was safe, fled from his estate, at the risk of his life, 
but was stopped at Kirchtrauf, pelted with stones, and wounded 
all over, torn from his horse, and only saved by a worthy merchant, 
who fell on him, crying, " Now I have got the rascal." He drew 
the count into a neighboring convent, where his wounds were 
dressed, and a refuge afforded him. His secretary was struck from 
his horse with an axe, but saved in a similar manner, and in the 
evening conveyed, with his master, to Leutschau. But enough of 
these horrible scenes.' 

It is by no means my purpose, on this occasion, to attempt even 
a sketch of what the judicious exercise of the intelligent principle 
has enabled men to do, for the improvement of their fellow-men. 
Enough, I venture to hope, has been said, to put all who favor me 
with their attention, upon the reflection, that it is only by its im- 
provement, that it is possible for a man to render himself useful to 
man ; and, consequently, that it is in this way alone, that he can 
taste the highest and purest pleasure, which our natures can enjoy, 
that which proceeds from the consciousness, of having been useful 
to others. 

But it is time that I should make a few remarks on another 
subject, which would seem appropriately to belong to this occa- 
sion. 

An idea, I fear, prevails, that truths, such as I have now attempt- 
ed to illustrate, are obvious enough in themselves, but that they 
37 



•J!»~ EVEKETT»S ORATIONS. 

apply onl) to men of literary education, to professional charact< rs, 
and persons of fortune and leisure; and thai it is oul of the power 
of the other classes of society, and those who pass mosi of their 
time in manual labor and mechanical industry, to engage in the 
pursuii of knowledge, with any hope of being useful to themselves 
and others. 

This I believe to be a greal error. I trusl we ma) regard the 
meeting of this numerous audience, a-- a satisfactory proof, thai you 
consider ii an error; and thai you arc persuaded, thai it is in your 
power, in enjoy die pleasures and tin' benefits which flow from 
the pursuii of useful know ledge. 

What is it thai we wish to improve? The mind. — [s this a 
thing monopolized l>y any class of socii i\ F God Forbid: it is the 
heritage with which he has endowed all the children of the great 
family of man. Is it a treasure belonging to the wealthy? It is 
talent bestowed alike on rich and |>oor: high and low. Hut this 
IS not all : mind is, in all men. and in every man. the same active, 
living and creative principle ; it is the man himself. One of the 
renowned philosophers of heathen antiquit) beautifully said of the 
Intellectual faculties, I call them not mine, bul me. It is these, 

w liieli make the man : w liieli are the man. I do not say, that op- 
portunities, that wealth, leisure, and greal advantages for education 
are nothing ; bul I do say, the) are much less than is commonly 
supposed : I do sa] eneral rule, that the amounl of useful 

knowledge which men acquire, and the good they do with it. are 
by no means in direct proportion to the degree to which they have 

enjoyed what are COmmonl) called the greal advantages of life. 
\\ isdom cue- sometimes, hut not mosi commonly, feed her children 
with a silver spoon. I believe it is perfectly correcl tosay, that a 
small proportion only of those, w ho have been mosi distinguished for 
the improvemem of their minds, have enjoyed the besl aaVai 
for education. I do do1 mean to detract, in the [< asl degree, from 
the advantages of the various seminaries for learning, which public 
and private liberalit) has founded in our country. The) serve as 
. v In re a large number «>f persons are prepared for their em- 
ployment in the various occupations, which the public service re- 
quires. But, I repeal it, of the greal benefactors of our race ; the 
men, who, by wonderful inventions, remarkable discoveries, and 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 299 

extraordinary improvements, have conferred the most eminent ser- 
vice on their fellow-men, and gained the highest names in history, 
— by far the greater part have been men of humble origin, narrow 
fortunes, small advantages, and self-taught. 

And this springs from the nature of the mind of man, which is 
not, like natural things, a vessel to be filled up from without ; into 
which you may pour a little or pour much ; and then measure, as 
with a gage, the degrees of knowledge imparted. The knowl- 
edge that can be 50 imparted, is the least valuable kind of knowl- 
edge ; and the man who has nothing but this, may be very learned, 
but cannot be very wise. We do not invite you to these lectures, 
as if their object would be attained, when you have heard the 
weekly address. It is to kindle the understanding to the conscious- 
ness of its own powers ; to make it feel within itself, that it is a 
living, spiritual thing ; to feed it, in order that it may itself begin 
to act and operate, to compare, contrive, invent, improve, and per- 
fect. This is our object ; — an object, as much within the reach of 
every man who hears me, as if he had taken a degree in the best 
college in Christendom. 

In this great respect, — the most important that touches human 
condition, — we are all equal. It is not more true, that all men 
possess the same natural senses and organs, than that their minds 
are endowed with the same capacities for improvement, though not, 
perhaps, all in the same degree. The condition in which they are 
placed, is certainly not a matter of entire indifference. The child 
of a savage, born in the bosom of a barbarous tribe, is, of course, shut 
out from all chance of sharing the improvements of civilized com- 
munities. So, in a community, like our own, an infant condemned, 
by adverse circumstances, to a life of common street beggary, must 
be considered as wholly out of the reach of all improving influences. 
But Shakspeare, whose productions have been the wonder and de- 
light of all who speak the English language, for two hundred years, 
was a runaway youth, the son of a wool-comber, who got his living 
in London, by holding horses at the door of the theatre, for those 
who went to the play ; and Sir Richard Arkwright, who invented 
the machinery for spinning cotton, of which I have already spoken, 
was the youngest of thirteen children of a poor peasant, and, till 



300 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

he was thirty years of age, followed the business of a travelling 
barber. 

As men bring into the world with them an equal intellectual en- 
dowment; that is, minds equally susceptible of improvement ; so 
in a community, like that in which we have the happiness to live, 
the means of improvement are much more equally enjoyed, than 
might, at first, be supposed. Whoever has learned to read, pos- 
sesses the keys of knowledge ; and can, whenever he pleases, not 
only unlock the portals of her temple, but penetrate to the inmost 
halls and most secret cabinets. A few dollars, the surplus of the 
earnings of the humblesl industry, are sufficient to purchase the 
use of hooks, which contain the elements of the whole circle of 
u<i'l\\\ knowledge. 

It may be thought that a considerable portion of the community 
want time to attend to the cultivation of their minds. But it is 
onl\ necessary to make the experiment, to find two things; one, 
how much useful knowledge can be acquired in a very little time ; 
and the other, how much time can be spared, by good manage- 
ment, oul of the busiest day. Generally speaking, our duties leave 
us time enough, if our passions would but spare us; our labors are 
much less urgent, in their calls upon us. than our indolence and 
our pleasures. There are very few pursuits in life, whose duties 
are SO inc. -sint. that they do not leave a little time. e\er\ da\ . to 

a man. whose temperate and regular habits allow him the comfort 
ot a clear head and a cheerful temper, in the intervals of occupa- 
tion ; and then there is one day in seven, which is redeemed to 
us, b) our blessed religion, from the calls of life, and affords us 
all time enough, for the improvement of our rational and immortal 
natures. 

It i- a prevalent mistake to suppose, that any class of men have 
much time to spend, or do spend much time, in mere contempla- 
tion and study. A small number of literary men ma] do this; but 
the \er\ -icat majority of professional men,— lawyers, doctors, and 
ministers, men in public station, rich capitalists, merchants, — men. 
in short, who are supposed t" possess eminent advantages, and am- 
ple leisure to cultivate their minds, are all ven much occupied with 
the (In tie- of life, and constant!) and active!) employed in pursuit 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 301 

very uncongenial to the cultivation of the mind and the attain- 
ment of useful knowledge. Take the case of an eminent lawyer, 
in full practice. He passes his days in his office, giving advice to 
clients, often about the most uninteresting and paltry details of 
private business, or in arguing over the same kind of business in 
court ; and when it comes night, and he gets home, tired and har- 
assed,* instead of sitting down to rest or to read, he has to study 
out another perplexed cause, for the next day ; or go before refer- 
ees ; or attend a political meeting, and make a speech ; while 
every moment, which can be regarded, in any degree, as leisure 
time, is consumed by a burdensome correspondence. Besides this, 
he has his family to take care of. It is plain, that he has no more 
leisure for the free and improving cultivation of his mind, indepen- 
dent of his immediate profession, than if he had been employed 
the same number of hours, in mechanical or manual labor. One 
of the most common complaints of professional men, in all the 
professions, is, that they have no time to read ; and I have no doubt, 
there are many such, of very respectable standing, who do not, in 
any branch of knowledge, not connected with their immediate pro- 
fessions, read the amount of an octavo volume in the course of a 
season. 

There is, also, a time of leisure, which Providence, in this cli- 
mate, has secured to almost every man, who has any thing which 
can be called a home ; I mean our long winter evenings. This 
season seems provided, as if expressly, for the purpose of furnishing 
those who labor, with ample opportunity for the improvement of 
their minds. The severity of the weather, and the shortness of 
the days, necessarily limit the portion of time, which is devoted to 
out-doors' industry ; and there is little to tempt us abroad, in search 
of amusement. Every thing seems to invite us to employ an hour 
or two of this calm and quiet season, in the acquisition of useful 
knowledge, and the cultivation of the mind. The noise of life is 
hushed ; the pavement ceases to resound with the din of laden 
wheels, and the tread of busy men ; the glaring sun has gone down, 
and the moon and the stars are left to watch in the heavens, over 
the slumbers of the peaceful creation. The mind of man should 
keep its vigils with them ; and while his body is reposing from the 
labors of the day, and his feelings are at rest from its excitements. 



302 I \ I. RETT'S ORATIONS. 

he should seek, in some amusing and instructive page, a substantia] 
food for the generous appetite for knowledge. 

[f we needed an) encouragement to make these efforts to improve 
our minds, we mighl find it in ever) page of our country's history. 
Nowhere do we meel with examples, more numerous and more 
brilliant, of men, who have risen above poverty and obscurity, and 
ever) disadvantage, to usefulness and an honorable name Our 
whole vasl continenl was added to the geograph) of the world, by 
the persevering efforts of an humble Genoese mariner, the great 
Columbus, who, b) the stead) pursuit of the enlightened concep- 
tion which he had formed of the figure of the earth, before an) 
navigator had acted upon the belief that it was round, discovered 
the American continent. He was the son of a (jcnoe-e pilot ; a 
pilot and seaman himself; and, at one period of his melancholy 
career, was reduced to beg bis bread at the doors of the convents 
in Spain. Hut he carried within himself, and beneath an humble 
exterior, a spirit, for which there was not room in Spain, in Europe, 
nor in the (hen known world: and which led him on to a height 
of usefulness and fame, beyond that of all the monarchs thai ever 
r§igned. 

The story of our Franklin cannot be repeated too often; — the 
poor Boston bo) : the son of an humble tradesman, broughl up a 
mechanic himself ; a stranger at colleges, till they showered their 
es upon him; who rendered hi- country the mosl important 
services, in establishing her independence ; enlarged the bounds of 
philosophy, by a new department of science: and lived to be pro- 
nounced, by Lord Chatham, in the British house of peers, an honor 

to Kurope. and the age in w Inch he lived. 

Wh) should I -peak of Green, who lefl his blacksmith's fur- 
nace, to command an army in the revolutionary war: die chosen 
friend of Washington, and, next to him. perhaps, the militar) lend- 
er, who stood highest in die confidence of hi- countrj .- 

W i -i. the fa i non- painter, was the son of a Quaker in Philadel- 
phia : he was i. hi poor, ai die beginning of his career, to purchase 
canvass and colors ; and he rose, eventually, to be the first artisl 
in Europe, and presidenl of the Royal V.cadem) at London. 
Couni Rumford was the -on of a fanner, at Woburn: be never 
bad the advantage ol a colleg< education, but used to walk down 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 303 

to Cambridge, to hear the lectures on natural philosophy. He be- 
came one of the most eminent philosophers in Europe ; founded 
the royal institution in London, and had the merit of bringing for- 
ward Sir Humphrey Davy, as the lecturer on chemistry, in that 
establishment. Robert Fulton was a portrait painter in Pennsyl- 
vania, without friends or fortune. By his successful labors in per- 
fecting steam navigation, he has made himself one of the greatest 
benefactors of man. Whitney, the son of a Massachusetts farmer, 
was a machinist. His cotton-gin, according to Judge Johnson, of 
the Supreme Court of the United States, has trebled the value of 
all the cotton lands at the South, and has had an incalculable in- 
fluence on the agricultural and mechanical industry of the world. 
Whittemore, of West Cambridge, the person who invented the 
machinery for the manufacture of cards, possessed no other means 
of improvement than those which are within the reach of every 
temperate and industrious man. Several in this audience were 
probably acquainted with the modest and sterling merit of the late 
Paul Moody. To the efforts of his self-taught mind, the early 
prosperity of the great manufacturing establishments at Waltham 
and Lowell, is, in no small degree, owing. I believe I may say, 
with truth, that not one of these individuals enjoyed, at the outset, 
superior opportunities for acquiring useful knowledge, to those in 
the reach of every one who hears me. 

These are all departed ; but we have, living among us, illustri- 
ous instances of men, who, without early advantages, but by the 
resolute improvement of the few opportunities thrown in their 
way, have rendered themselves, in like manner, useful to their 
fellow-men ; the objects of admiration to those who witness their 
attainments, and of gratitude to those who reap the fruit of their 
labors. 

On a late visit to New Haven, I saw exhibited a most beautiful 
work of art ; two figures in marble, representing the affecting scene 
of the meeting of Jephthah and his daughter, as described in the 
Bible. The daughter, a lovely young woman, is represented as 
going forth, with the timbrel in her hand, to meet her father, as he 
returns in triumph from the wars. Her father had rashly vowed 
to sacrifice to the Lord the first living thing which he should meet, 
on his return ; and, as his daughter runs forth to embrace him, he 



304 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

rends bis garments, and turns his head in agony, at the thought of 
his vow. Tiie young maiden pauses, astonished and troubled at 
the strange reception. This pathetic scene is beautifully repre- 
sented in two marble figures of most exquisite taste, finished in a 
st) le w hicb would do credit to a master in the art. They are the 
work of a self-taught artist, at Vw Haven, who began life, I have 
been informed, as a retailer of liquors. This business he was obli- 
ged to give up, under a heavy load of debt. He then turned his 
attention to carving in wood: and. In his skill and thrift in that 
pursuit, succeeded in paying off the debts of his former establish- 
ment, to the amount of several thousand dollars. Thus honorably 
placed at liberty, he has since devoted himself to the profession of 
a sculptor, and, without education, without funds, without instruc- 
tion, he has risen, at once, to extraordinary proficiency in this diffi- 
cult and beautiful art, and bids fair to enrol his name among the 
brightest geniuses of the day. 

I scarce know if I may venture to adduce an instance, nearer 
home, of the most praiseworthy and successful cultivation of use- 
ful knowledge, on the part of an individual, without education, 
bu.-ily employed in mechanical industry. 1 have the pleasure to 
be acquainted, in one of the neighboring towns, with a person, 
who was brought up to the trade of a leather-dresser, and has all 
his life worked, and still works, al this business. He has devoted 

In- I' isure hour-, and a portion of his honorable earnings, to the 

cultivation of useful and eleganl learning. Under the same roof, 
which covers his store and workshop, he has the mosl excellent li- 
brary of English books, for its size, with which I am acquainted. 

The hooks have been selected with a good judgment, which would 

do credit to the most accomplished scholar, and have been import- 
ed from England bj himself. What is more important than hav- 
ing the hook-, their proprietor is well acquainted with their contents. 
Anion- them, are several volumes of the mosl costlj and magnifi- 
cent engravings. Connected with his library, is an exceedingly 
interesting series of paintings, in water-colors, which a fortunate 
accident placed i n his possession, and several valuable pictures, 
purchased In himself. The whole forms a treasure of taste and 
knowledge, nol surpassed, if equalled, bj any thing of \^ kind in 
the country. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 305 

I should leave this part of my address too unjustly defective, did 
I not add, that we possess, within our own city, an instance of 
merit, as eminent as it is unobtrusive, in the person of one who has 
raised himself, from the humblest walks of life, to the highest sci- 
entific reputation. Little, perhaps, is it known to the intelligent 
mariner, who resorts to his Practical Navigator, for the calculations 
with which he finds his longitude in mid-ocean, that many of them 
are the original work of one, who started at the same low point in 
life with himself. Still less is it known to him, that this was but 
the commencement of a series of scientific productions, which have 
placed their author upon an equality with the most distinguished 
philosophers of Europe, and inscribed the name of Bowditch with 
those of Newton and La Place, upon that list of great minds, to 
which scarcely one is added in a century. 

But why should I dwell on particular instances ? Our whole 
country is a great and speaking illustration of what may be done 
by native force of mind, uneducated, without advantages, but start- 
ing up under strong excitement, into new and successful action. 
The statesmen, who conducted the Revolution to its honorable 
issue, were called, without experience, to the head of affairs. The 
generals, who commanded our armies, were most of them taken, 
like Cincinnatus, from the plough ; and the forces which they led, 
were gathered from the firesides of an orderly and peaceful popula- 
tion. They were arrayed against all the experience, talent, and 
resource of the elder world ; and came off victorious. They have 
handed down to us a country, — a constitution, — and a national 
career, affording boundless scope to every citizen, and calling eve- 
ery individual to do for himself, what our fathers unitedly did for 
the country. What man can start in life, with so few advantages 
as our country started with, in the race of independence ? Over 
whose private prospects, can there hang a cloud, as dark as that 
which brooded over the cause of America ? Who can have less 
to encourage, and more to appal and dishearten him, than the sa- 
ges and chieftains of the Revolution ? Let us, then, endeavor to 
follow in their steps ; and each, according to his means and ability, 
try to imitate their glorious example ; despising difficulties, grasp- 
ing at opportunities, and steadily pursuing some honest and manly 
aim. We shall soon find, that the obstacles which oppose our 
38 



-306 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

progress, sink into the dust before a firm and resolute step; and 
thai the pleasures and benefits of knowledge are within the reach 
of all w ho seek it. 

There arc a few considerations, which 1 beg leave more particu- 
larly to address to the younger part of the audience, and which 
-ccin to call on them, peculiarly, with a loud voice, to exert them- 
selves, according to their opportunities, to store their minds with 
useful knowledge. 

The world is advanced to a high point of attainment in science 
and art. The progress of invention and improvement has been, 
especially of late years, prodigiously rapid; and now. whether we 
regard the science of nature or of art, of mind or of morals, of con- 
templation or of practice, it must be confessed, that we live in a 
wonderfully improved period. 

Where is all this knowledge? where does it dwell? In the 
minds of the present generation of men. It is, indeed, recorded 
in books, or embodied in tin 1 various work- and structures of man. 
lint these are only the manifestations of know ledge. The hooks 
are nothing, till they are read and understood ; and then they are 
only a sort of short-hand, an outline, which the mind Gils up. 
The thing itself, the science, the art, the skill, are in the minds 
of living men, — of that generation which is now upon the stage. 

That generation will die and pass away. This hour, which we 
have spent together, has been the last hour to many thousands 
throughout the world. About three thousand of Our race have died 
since I began my lecture. Among them, of course, is a fair pro- 
portion of all the learned and the wise, in all the nations. In thirty 
years, all now living will be gone, or retired from the scene, and a 
new generation will have succeeded. 

This mighty process does nut take place at once, either through- 
out the world, or in any part of it: but it is constantly going on. 
— silently, effectually, inevitably : and all the knowledge, art, and 
refinement, now in existence, must be either acquired by those who 
iming on the stage, or it perishes with those who are going 
oil", and is losl for ever. There is no way, by which knowledge 
can be handed down, but by being learned over again ; and of all 
the science, art, and skill in the world, so much onlj will survive, 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 307 

when those who possess it are gone, as shall he acquired by the 
succeeding generation. All the rest must perish. 

The rising generation is now called upon to take up this mighty 
weight ; to carry it along a little way ; and then hand it over, in 
turn, to their successors. 

The minds which, in their maturity, are to be the depositories 
of all this knowledge, are coming into existence every day and 
every hour, in every rank and station of life ; all equally endowed 
with faculties ; all, at the commencement, equally destitute of ideas ; 
all starting with the ignorance and helplessness of nature ; all in- 
vited to run the noble race of improvement. In the cradle there 
is as little distinction of persons as in the grave. 

The great lesson which I would teach you is, — that it depends 
mainly on each individual, what part he will bear in the accom- 
plishment of this great work. It is to be done by somebody. In 
a quiet order of things, the stock of useful knowledge is not only 
preserved, but augmented ; and each generation improves on that 
which went before. It is true, there have been periods, in the 
history of the world, when tyranny at home, or invasion from 
abroad, has so blighted and blasted the condition of society, that 
knowledge has perished with one generation, faster than it could 
be learned by another ; and whole nations have sunk from a condi- 
tion of improvement, to one of ignorance and barbarity, sometimes 
in a very few years. But no such dreadful catastrophe is now to 
be feared. Those who come after us will not only equal, but sur- 
pass their predecessors. The existing arts will be improved, science 
will be carried to new heights, and the great heritage of useful 
knowledge will go down unimpaired and augmented. 

But it is all to be shared out anew ; and it is for each man to 
say what part he will gain in the glorious patrimony. 

When the rich man is called from the possession of his treasures, 
he divides them as he will among his children and heirs. But 
an equal Providence deals not so with the living treasures of 
the mind. There are children just growing up in the bosom 
of obscurity, in town and in country, who have inherited noth- 
ing but poverty and health, who will, in a few years, be striving 
in stern contention with the great intellects of the land. Our 
system of free schools has opened a straight way from the thresh- 



:><H EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

old of every abode, however humble, in the village or in the city, 
to the high places of usefulness, influence, and honor. And it is 
left for each, by the cultivation of every talent; by watching, 
with an eagle's eye, for ever) chance of improvement ; l>_\ bound- 
ing forward, like a greyhound, at the most distant glimpse of hon- 
orable opportunity ; l>\ grappling, as with hooks of steel, to the 
prize, when it is won ; by redeeming time, defying temptation, and 
scorning sensual pleasure, to make himself useful, honored, and 
happy. 



SPEECH 



BEFORE THE COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 



At the annual meeting of the Colonization Society, on the 
16th of January, 1832, in the hall of the House of Representa- 
ives, at Washington, Mr Mercer, of Virginia, being in the chair, 
Mr Edward Everett offered the following resolution : — 

Resolved, That the colonization of the coast of Africa is the most effi- 
cient mode of suppressing the slave trade, and of civilizing the African 
continent. 

In submitting the foregoing resolution, Mr Everett addressed 
the chair as follows : — 

Mr Chairman, 

In obtruding myself, for a short time, upon your notice, this 
evening, I perform, in some sense, an official duty. The Legis- 
lature of the State, which I have the honor in part to represent in 
Congress, adopted, at its session last winter, a resolution, request- 
ing its Senators and Representatives to lend their efforts, in co- 
operation with the American Colonization Society. This instruc- 
tion, of course, referred to official exertions on this floor, in another 
capacity. But I have regarded it also as a motive of an imperative 
nature, in reference to the objects of this meeting, by which it is 
proposed to concentrate and apply the force of public opinion, in 
furtherance of the same great design. 

In the part of the country in which I live, the presence of a 
colored population, co-existing with the whites, is not felt as an 



810 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

evil. The) are few in proportion to the rest of the community. 
They contain among tin ir cumbers mam respectable and useful 
persons. At the same time, ii 1^ true, as a class, thej are depress- 
ed to a low point in the social scale. A single lac! will illustrate 
this remark. Tiny form, in Massachusetts, about one seventy- 
fifth pari of the population; bul one-sixth of the convicts in our 
prisons, are of this class. Allowing for some exaggeration in this 
statement, it is still a painful disproportion. What do 1 infer from 
it? Nothing, surely, as to any superior proneness of the colored 
population, as Mich, to crime. I>ut 1 think it proves, that a- a 
class, tiny are ignoranl and needy ; ignorance and want being the 
pan nt- of ciime. Anions the whites, 1 have no doubt, that of 
that portion who are horn to hopeless want and hopeless ignorance, 
— an inheritance of poverty, temptation, and absence of moral 
restraint, — an equal proportion become the subjects of our penal 
laws. 

Bui though this population is not felt as an evil in New- 
England, we are able to enter into those considerations, which 
have led the venerable Chief Justice of the United States, in the 
letti r just read to u-. to -peak of it as an e\ il of momentous char- 
acter to the peace and welfare of the Union. That evil, however, 
we of the .North h;:\e been, for the most part, willing to leave to 
tho<e whom it more immediately concerns ; some of whom. I trust, 
speaking under the lights of observation and experience, will favor 
this meeting w ith their views on this \ erj important subject There 
are. however, aspects of the influence and operations of this Soci- 
ety, universally interesting to the philanthropist and friend of hu- 
manity : prospects of discharging a moral duty of the mosl imper- 
ative character, and of achieving a work of great, comprehensive, 
and ever-during benevolence. In the resolution which I bavehad 
the honor to submit, I have alluded to these views of the opera- 
tion- and effects of the Society. 

Ii i- now somewhat more than half a century, since the abolition 
of the slave-trade began to be seriousl) agitated.* This work. I 
believe, sir, was begun by your native State. If I mistake not. 

on this subject, the rerj interesting tract, -Judge Tncki res- 

pectingSku ry, with Dr Belknap's Answers. Collections of Man Hist. 8oc, Vol. 

[\ p i'»i I ,i-t Seri( - 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 311 

(speaking from general recollection), Virginia led the way before 
the American Revolution, in prohibiting the African slave-trade. 
The acts of her colonial legislature to that effect, were disallowed 
by the British crown, — a grievance set forth in the Declaration of 
Independence among the causes of the Revolution. In 1776, Mr 
David Hartley laid upon the table of the House of Commons, 
some of the fetters used in confining the unhappy victims of this 
traffic on board the slave-ships, and moved a resolution, that it was 
contrary to the laws of God, and the rights of man. The public 
sensibility had been strongly excited about this time, by the atro- 
cious circumstance, that one hundred and thirty-two living slaves 
had been thrown overboard, from a vessel engaged in the trade. 
In 1787, Mr Wilberforce made his first motion in the House of 
Commons, on this subject. The same year, the Constitution of 
the United States fixed the period for its abolition in the United 
States, which accordingly took place, by a law passed at the time 
prescribed, — 1808. In 1788, the slave-trade was abolished in 
Massachusetts. In 1792, Mr Pitt made his great speech in Par- 
liament, which continued from that time for fifteen years a grand 
arena, where this question was strenuously contested, by the ablest 
statesmen of the day. Having carried the point at home, the 
British government, with praiseworthy zeal, directed its attention 
to procure from the continental powers, an abolition of this guilty 
traffic. At the Congress of Vienna, in 1815, the Sovereigns 
there present, and the States represented, pledged themselves to 
its suppression ; and at length, after a tedious succession of nego- 
tiations and conventions, not very creditable to some of the high 
parties concerned, on the 23d of March, 1830, the prosecution of 
the slave-trade ceased to be lawful, for the citizens or subjects of 
any Christian power in Europe or America. 

And now, Mr Chairman, I must state the melancholy fact, that, 
notwithstanding all these exertions, and the success with which they 
seemed to be crowned, less has, at any period, been effected, than 
was hoped for and anticipated. Until the 23d of March, 1830, 
the Brazilians were allowed to carry on the trade south of the 
equator. There was but little difficulty thrown in the way of a 
very extensive prosecution of it. Slave ships of all countries, pur- 
suing the traffic to every part of the coast, were provided with 



312 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

fabricated papers, to show that they were carrying on the permitted 
traffic, south of the equator. Dr AValsh, in his interestiiiii work 
on Brazil, gives a very affecting account of the chase of a slave- 
ship by the British frigate in which he was sailing for Europe. Af- 
ter a ken pursuit of three hundred miles, the slave-ship was cap- 
tured. She had taken in five hundred and sixty-two slaves on the 
coasl ol Africa, and had been oul seventeen days, in which time 

fifty-five had died! The wretched brew, Over five hundred in 

number, were liberated from their horrid confinement between 
decks, and for a short time Mattered with the hope of liberty. Bui 
on examining the papers of the commander of the ship, although 
there was the strongest reason to suspect their wanl of genuineness, 
there was nothing to prove it; and it became necessary for the 
British officers to drive these unhappy beings hack to their hold. 
and surrender them up to the wretch, who was drawing them from 
their native country, into perpetual slavery in Brazil. 

Although the traffic is now denounced, and declared illegal or 
piratical, by every Christian government, it is supposed that it is 
still very extensively carried on. The regulations of the British 
teryice forbid the capture of vessels, however apparently they are 
fitted out for the pursuit of this trade, unless they actually have 
slaves on hoard. The slave-ships consequently hover about the 
coast, which is mostly low, sunken, and indented with numerous 
branching rivers, taking in their carico in the niidit, escaping h\ one 
arm of a stream, while another is blockaded by a cruiser, and thus 
elude capture. In addition to this, the governments of France 
and America have not yel fell themselves authorized to admil a 
right ol search l>_\ foreign cruizers.* These circumstances united. 
together with the enhanced value of slaves, occasioned b) the 
obstacles thrown in the waj of the accustomed pursuit ol' the 
slave-trade will, it is to be feared, for some time, have the 
effect of causing it to be conducted with greater keenness, 
ferocity, and waste of life. It will be carried on in swift- 
sailing vessels; on hoard of which, the wretched victims of 

* Since the foregoing remarks were made, it has been stated in the papers, that, 
l>\ a recent convention between England and Prance, the French Government baa 
authorized tli<- right of search on the coast of Africa, with a rien to the suppression 
of the ilave-ti 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 313 

the traffic will be more than ever crowded ; and barbarous expedi- 
ents, in the event of search, will be resorted to, to escape detection. 
It has already happened that slaves have been enclosed in casks, 
and thrown overboard, in a chase, to be picked up when the danger 
of capture was over.* The want of a vigorous government, and 
of an enlightened sentiment in the Havana, the general growth of 
piracy, and the vicinity of Brazil to the coast of Africa, will, it is 
to be feared, under present circumstances, furnish but too many 
facilities for carrying on this wicked commerce. It is supposed, 
that nearly one hundred thousand human beings are still annually 
taken by violence from the coast cf Africa, and carried into slavery. 
If such be the facts of the case, and even with considerable al- 
lowance for exaggeration, it is plain that the methods hitherto pur- 
sued for the destruction of the slave-trade, — penal denunciation, 
enforced by armed cruisers, — have proved, in a high degree, inef- 
fectual. Nor can it be hoped, that it will be found practicable to 
guard the coast of Africa, (an extent all round of eighty degrees of 
latitude), by any force competent to the suppression of the trade. 
Another mode, then, must be adopted, or the attainment of the 
object must be abandoned in despair. Such another mode happily 
presents itself, of efficacy already proved by experience ; and that 
is, the establishment of colonies on the African coast. In this way, 
a cordon is drawn along that continent, which the slave-trader can- 
not penetrate. The experience already had in the British colony 
of Sierra Leone, and in our own Liberia, abundantly authorizes 
this conclusion. In reference to Liberia, 1 take great pleasure in 
quoting an honorable testimony from a recent British publication, 

* Shortly after these remarks were made, the following account appeared in the 
English papers : 

' The Fair Rosamond and the Black Joke, tenders to the Dryad frigate, have cap- 
tured three slave-vessels, which had originally eleven hundred slaves on board ; but 
of which they succeeded in taking only three hundred and six to Sierra Leone. It 
appears, that the Fair Rosamond had captured a lugger with 160 Africans, and 
shortly after saw the Black Joke in chase of two other luggers. She joined in the 
pursuit; but the vessels succeeded in getting into Bonny river, and landed six hun- 
dred slaves, before the tenders could take possession of them. They found on board 
only two hundred, but ascertained that the rascals, in command of the slavers, had 
thrown overboard one hundred and eighty slaves, manacled together, of whom only 
four were picked up.' 

39 



31 1 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

entitled to additional credit, on the score of impartiality, from the 
source from which it proceeds. After an exceedingly favorable 
account of the colony, in nil its aspects, the writer to whom I al- 
lude. continu< - : ' Nothing has tended more to suppress the slave- 
trade in this quarter, than the constant intercourse and communica- 
tion of the natives with these industrious colonists. The American 
ag( nt. Mr Ashmun, took ever) opportunit) and means in his power, 
to extinguish a traffic, so injurious, in ever) way, to the fair trader.' 
■ Wherever the influence of this colon) extends, the slave-trade 
has been abandoned b) the natives, and the peaceful pursuits of 
legitimate commerce established in its place.' 4 

Wherever a civilized jurisdiction is established on the African 
coast, the slave-trade is destroyed, not merely b) preventing and 
prohibiting the approach of the traders, but by instituting a law lid 
and lucrative commerce with the natives, and inducing them to seek 
the supply of their wants, in the exchange of the abundant pro- 
ducts of their fertile soil for those articles of foreign product and 
manufacture, which are in requesl among them. 

.\ni onl) is this the most effectual, I ma) say the only effectual, 
mode nf suppressing the trade, hut it i- unfortunatel) true, that the 
other method, (the pursuit of the slave-traders b) armed cruisers in 
the seas most infested by them.) is, even when successful in its op- 
erations, accompanied b) some of the worsl evils ol the trade, in 
its undisturbed prosecution. A cruising ship of war perceives a 
suspicious vessel at a distance, and gives chase to her. for hours, 
perhaps da) s. It is evident, thai in die crowded condition ol such 
vessels, the sufferings of the wretched beings on hoard, must be 
greatl) heightened b) the neglect, perhaps the cruelties, attendant 
on being chased. Some of the slave-ships are provided with false 
deck-, helow which the slaves are crowded, when about to fall into 
the hands of a cruiser, and casks and packages are piled above, to 
give the semblance of an ordinarj trading voyage. Some ol the 

slave-ships are strongly armed, and an action often take- place w ith 

the cruiser. This must add. of course, immeasurabl) to the suffer- 

I on 'ii" actual rtate of the slave-trade on the coaal of Africa, in the Amu- 
let for 1882, mid to be * extracted principal!] from the Journal of b g rilanl and dia- 
lled naval officer, who passed three yean on the African coast, from which he 
irnebV 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 315 

ings and sacrifice of life of the miserable victims crowded between 
decks. When captured, what is their condition ? They are in 
the mid ocean, perhaps. It is known to all, that the horrors of the 
middle passage form one of the most frightful features of the slave- 
trade. When a slave-ship is captured, that horrid voyage is yet 
to be performed, and with scarce any alleviation of its sufferings. 
The slaves still remain, of necessity, crowded to suffocation, on a 
miserable allowance of food, exposed to all the causes of disease 
and death. If captured by an American cruiser, they must be 
sent across the Atlantic, to be adjudicated in the United States. 
If captured by the cruisers of the other powers, they must be sent 
up to windward, to the seat of the mixed commission on the Afri- 
can coast ; a voyage frequently of weeks, sometimes of months, dur- 
ing the whole of which they are suffering an amount of misery, and 
dying at a rate of mortality, probably without a parallel in any oth- 
er condition of human nature. It would lead me too greatly into 
detail, to trace the situation of the captured Africans, after they are 
safely landed on the coast either of the United States or of Africa. 
As to the former, your memory, sir, can furnish you with facts, 
which I will not grieve this audience by repeating. But this I will 
say, that the situation of the re-captured African is too often one, 
that affords but little cause of congratulation, on the score of hu- 
manity. I do not go too far in saying, (for the public documents 
of this government bear me out in the assertion), that there have 
been cases of re-captured Africans, brought within the jurisdiction 
of the United States, who, for aught they have gained by their 
liberation, might as well have remained in the hands of the slave- 
trader ! 

To all these evils, so far as the influence of the civilized colo- 
nies on the coast of Africa extends, they furnish a complete reme- 
dy. They purify from the contamination of the slave-trade, the 
entire extent of coast within their jurisdiction. That our colony 
has borne its part in this happy work, is manifest from the Reports 
of the Managers, which have informed us, that, short as the annals 
of the colony are, they already present instances of native tribes, 
who, harassed and exhausted by this all-destroying traffic, have 
placed themselves under the American colony for protection. The 



;; it; i.\ bbxtt*s orations. 

same is true, and, of course, to a greater extent, of the more pow- 
erful British colony at Sierra Leone. 

By the same process, by which the colonization of the coast 
tends to the suppression of the slave-trade, it promotes the civiliza- 
tion of the interior of the comment of Africa. This is a topic, 
which, as il seems to me, has not received its share of consideration. 
Of mis i ontinent, four times as large as Europe, one third 

part, at lea t, is within the direct reach of influences, from the west 
of Europe and America, — influences, which, for three hundred 
years, have been employed, through ncj of the slave-trade, 

to depress and barbarize it; to chain it down to the lowesl point 
of social degradation. 1 trust these influences are now to be em- 
ployed in repairing the wrongs, in healing the wounds, in gradually 
improving the condition of Africa. I trust that a great reaction is 
at hand. Can ii be believed, that this mighty region, mosl ol it 
overflowing with tropical abundance, was created and destined for 
eternal barbarity ? Is it possiblt . in the presi nt state of the public 
sentiment of the world. — with the present rapid diffusion of knowl- 
edge, — with the present reduction of antiquated errors to the t< -t 
of reason, — that such a quarter of the world will he permitted to 
derive nothing but barbarism, from intercourse with the countries 

which 3tand at the head of ci\ ili/.ation ? It cannot lie. 

1 know n i -aid. that it is impossible to civilize Africa. Why : 
Why is it impossible to civilize man in one part of the earth more 
than in another? Consuli history. Was Italy, — was Greece, the 
cradle of civilization ? .No. \~ (ar back as the lights ol' tradition 

reach, Africa was the cradle of science, while S_\iia. and Greece, 

and Italy, were vet covered with darkness. As far back a- we can 
trace tin- fir t rudimi nts of improvement, the) came from the very 
head waters of die .Nile, far in the interior of Africa: and there 
are yet to he found, in sir tins, the monuments ol' this pri- 

meval civilization. 'To come down to a much later period, while 
the west and north of Europe wire yet barbarous, the Mediterra- 
nean coast of Africa was tilled with cities, academies, museums, 
church'-, and a highly civilized populatii Q. What 1 the 

Gaul, the Belgium, the Germany, linavia, the Britain of 

ancient ty, to their present improved and improving condi- 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 317 

tion ? Africa is not now sunk lower, than most of those countries 
were eighteen centuries ago ; and the engines of social influence 
are increased a thousand fold in numbers and efficacy. It is not 
eighteen hundred years since Scotland, whose metropolis has been 
called the Athens of modern Europe, the country of Hume, of 
Smith, of Robertson, of Blair, of Stewart, of Brown, of Jeffrey, 
of Chalmers, of Scott, of Brougham, was a wilderness, infested 
by painted savages. It is not a thousand years, since the north of 
Germany, now filled with beautiful cities, learned universities, and 
the best educated population in the world, was a dreary, pathless 
forest. 

Is it possible, that, before an assembly like this, an assembly of 
Americans, it can be necessary to argue the possibility of civilizing 
Africa, through the instrumentality of a colonial establishment, and 
that, in a comparatively short time ? It is but about ten years, 
since the foundations of the colony of Liberia were laid, and every 
one, acquainted with the early history of New-England, knows 
that the colony at Liberia has made much greater progress than 
was made by the settlement at Plymouth, in the same period. 
More than once were the first settlements in Virginia in a position 
vastly less encouraging than that of the American colony on the 
coast of Africa ; and yet, from these feeble beginnings in New- 
England and Virginia, what has not been brought about in two 
hundred years ? Two hundred years ago, and the continent of 
North America, for the barbarism of its native population, and its 
remoteness from the sources of improvement, was all that Africa is 
now. Impossible to civilize Africa ! Sir, the work is already, in 
no small part, accomplished. We form our ideas of Africa too 
much from the wasted and degraded state of the coast. There 
are numerous and powerful nations in the interior, who are familiar 
with the art of writing ; the great index and engine of civilization. 
You and I, sir, have seen a native African, carried into slavery in 
the West Indies in his youth, exposed, for more than forty years, 
to the labors and hardships of that condition, the greater part of 
the time in the field, and at the age of seventy years, writing his 
native Arabic with the elegance and fluency of a scribe ! 

I cannot but regard the colonizing of Africa, by a kindred race 
of African origin, as an enterprise, in all respects as hopeful, and 



318 El BBETT'S OB \ DIONS. 

in 9ome respects far more promising, than thai of settling and ci\- 
ilizing America, l»\ an alien and hostile people. In the settlement 
and civilization o\ the American continent, either from the fatality 
of circumstances, or tin- incurable imperfection of man, the exter- 
mination of the Dative population has been the preliminary condi- 
tion of the introduction of the civilized race. It has been found, 
or thought impossible, thai the red man and the white man should 
subsisl side b) side. 

In colonizing Africa, no such painful incongruity presents itself. 
The colored emigrants from this country will present themselves 
on the African shore, a people of kindred origin, bringing with 
them the arts' of civilized life, unaccompanied with those fatal caus- 
es of separation, which have driven the aborigines of America 
before the approach of the white man. The gentle hand of nature 
will draw toward them the affections and confidence of the natives. 
The jealousies and suspicions, which diversity of race invariably 
produces, can have no foundation : and it ma) reasonably he ex- 
pected, if a vigorous impulse can now he given to the colony, that 
the work of civilization will proceed from it, as from a centre, with 
a rapidity unexampled in the history of other colonies. 

I am aware, that the partial failure of the establishment at Sier- 
I .■ one may he quoted, in opposition to these encouraging views. 
Bui it musl not he forgotten, that Sierra Leone is an establishment 
totally different, in it- origin and character, from Liberia. It is 
formed from the crews of the re-captured slave— hips, helpless sav- 
of a hundred different tribes, throw n, w ithout preparation, upon 
the coast, and, without any principle of order or self-government, 
subjected to all the evils of a remote and neglected military estab- 
lishment. The progress that has been made at Liberia, i-. on the 
contrary, all that could have been hoped. A tract of coast two 

hundred miles north and south, and twenty or thirty easl and wesl : 
a population o( two thousand emigrants, and several thousands of 
the native tribes who have voluntarilj sought the protection of 
the colon) : with schools and churches, and all the institutions 
of civilized life, — a greal state of prosperity, and every encourag- 
ing prospect, — tin- surel) is not -low progress lor ten years. 

\nd i- there an) thing in the nature of the case, which makes 
the restoration of the descendants of Africa to their native land, 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 319 

necessarily more slow than the process of abduction ? It is suppos- 
ed, that one hundred thousand slaves have been annually brought 
from Africa ; and that, too, at times when the trade has been pur- 
sued under great obstacles, illegally, piratically, by stealth, and 
under the watch of ships of war, stationed to intercept it. Can 
any man doubt, that if the governments of France, Great Britain, 
and the Netherlands, of the United States of America, and the 
several States, should apply their influence, their power, their re- 
sources to this great work, it might proceed with any desirable 
degree of rapidity ? The gentleman who preceded me (Rev. Mr 
Bacon, of New Haven), alluded to the prodigious influx of emi- 
grants into this country. I have lately seen a statement, that, 
within the past year, over forty thousand emigrants from Great 
Britain alone, have arrived at the single port of Quebec. More 
than half as many more have arrived in the various ports of the 
United States, making an aggregate of sixty thousand persons, in the 
different ports of North America. It is by no means to be desired, 
at present, that any thing like this number of emigrants should be 
annually set down on the African coast ; but I much mistake the 
public feeling in those parts of the United States most interested in 
this question, if a weight of influence and a supply of means are not 
shortly applied to this purpose, commensurate with the magnitude 
of the object to be effected. 

The age seems favorable to the movement ; it is in harmony 
with the great incidents of the time. From the east of Europe to 
the north of Africa, surprising changes, favorable to civilization, 
have taken place. Greece has been brought within the reach of 
the sympathies of the rest of Christendom. Temporary disorders, 
the natural fruit of revolution, will create but a brief delay in the 
advancement of that interesting country. The restoration of the 
northern coast of Africa to the domain of civilization has begun. 
The strongest of its barbarous regencies has been shaken ; and its 
power, which, for ages, seemed impregnable, — the scandal and the 
dread of Christendom, — has crumbled in a day. May we not 
hope, that a still more auspicious era is about to commence, — that 
a bloodless triumph is to be achieved on the western coast of 
Africa ? 



320 i \ kkktt's ouations. 

Happy for America, if she shall take an honorable lead in this 
great and beneficent work ! Happy, if, having presented to the 
world, on her own soil, a greal model of popular institutions, she 
should now become an efficient agenl in their diffusion over the 
ancient abodes of civilization, now relapsed into barbarity. I lappj . 
if she shall be forward to acquit her share of the mighty debt, 
which is due to injured Africa, from the civilized nations of the 
world. Who that has contemplated the infernal horrors of the slave- 
trade ; thai has seen, in his mind's eye, hundreds of men. women, 
and children, crowded between decks, into a -pace too low to stand 
up, — too short to lie dow u, — too narrow to nun. — chained, scourg- 
ed, famished, parched, heaped together, — the old and the young, 
the languishing, the dying, and the dead. — who can dwell on this 
spectacle, and not turn, with a throbbing heart, to the sight of a 
company of emigrants, the children of Africa, watted over the 
ocean, to the land of their lathers, bound toward the great and ge- 
nial home of their race, commissioned to trample the slave-trade 
into the dust, returning from a civilized land, to scatter the seeds 
of civilization over the mighty extent of western Africa! 

I know not but 1 may entertain an exaggerated impn ssion of 
this matter: that 1 ma) see it under lights too Strong for practical 
life. Bui I niUSl COnfeSS, 1 think there is opened tO the colored 

population of this country, a careerof broad and lasting usefulness, 

a destin) of honor and exaltation, unexampled in history. 

There seem to be peculiar circumstances in the work, of which 
they are the chosen agents, to be found in no other similar enter- 
prise in the annals of the world. A mighty continent is to be <i\- 

ilized: thai is not without example in history; but the restoration 
of the descendants of those who were torn as slaves from this ill- 
fated region, going back the heralds and missionaries of civiliza- 
tion, with freedom, the arts, and Christianity in their train; return- 
ing to regenerate a continent. — to raise th< mselves Oram a depn ssed 
condition, to one of the loftiest in which man can be placed. — the 
condition of benefactors ol an entire race, to the end of time; this 

h the destiny of the colored population of the United States who 
shall embark in the greal enti rprise of civilizing Africa ; — a destiny, 
as it stem-- to me, without a parallel in the history of mankind. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 321 

This glorious era has begun to dawn. Over a line of coast of 
nearly one thousand miles in extent, the purple streaks of the 
morning are beginning to appear ; and 

jocund day 
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops. 

From the extreme north of the British territory of Sierra Leone, 
southward to the Cape of Palmas, the entire coast, with one or 
two exceptions, has thrown off the curse of the slave-trade. Ma- 
ny, I know, who hear me, have seen the numbers of the Liberia 
Herald, a respectable newspaper, printed at Monrovia, and edited 
by a colored emigrant, regularly educated at one of the colleges 
of the United States.* You and I, sir, and many gentlemen around 
me, have listened, in the committee rooms of this Capitol, to the 
animated and intelligent accounts of the prosperity of this colony, 
the fertility of the soil, — the salubrity of the climate, — the free- 
dom and happiness of the mode of life in Liberia, — given by an 
emigrant from the L T nited States, — a descendant of African slaves, 
who had amassed a fortune, by honest and successful industry, in 
the land of his fathers. 

Sir, when men have a great, benevolent, and holy object in view, 
of permanent interest, obstacles are nothing. If it fails in the 
hands of one, it will be taken up by another. If it exceeds tbe 
powers of an individual, society will unite toward the desired end. 
If the force of public opinion in one country is insufficient, the 
kindred spirits of foreign countries will lend their aid. If it remain 
unachieved by one generation, it goes down, as a heritage of duty 
and honor, to the next ; and, through the long chain of counsels 
and efforts, from the first conception of the benevolent mind, that 
planned the great work, to its final and glorious accomplishment, 
there is a steady and unseen, but irresistible cooperation of that 
divine influence, which orders all things for good. 

Am I told, that the work we have in hand is too great to be 
done ? Too great, I ask, to be done when ; too great to be done 
by whom 1 Too great, I admit, to be done at once ; too great to 
be done by this Society ; too great to be done by this generation, 

* At Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine. 

40 



322 KVERETT'S ORATION-. 

perhaps; bul nol too great to be done. Nothing is too great to be 
(lone which is founded on truth and justice, and which is pursued 
with the meek and gentle spiril of Christian love. When this ob- 
jection was suggested in the British House of Commons, to the 
measures proposed for the regeneration of the children of Africa, 
Mr Pitt, in replj to it, exclaimed, ' We Britons were once as obscure 
among the nations of the earth, as savage in our manners, as debased 
in our morals, as degraded in our understandings, as these unhappy 
African- arc at present.' The work i- doubtless too great to be 
entirely effected by this Society, b) the mosl ardenl and zealous of 
it- friends, perhaps tor the present and the next succeeding gener- 
ation. But i^ it too great for the enlightened public opinion of the 
world? I- ii too -nat for the joint efforts of the United States, of 
Great Britain, and of France, and the other ( 'hri-tian countries, 
alreadj pledged to the cause? Is it too great for the transmitted 
purpose, the perpetuated concert of generations succeeding genera- 
tion-, for centuries to come? Sir, I iua\ ask, without irreverence. 
in a case like this, though it be too great for man. i> it too greal 
for that \i 1,1 st Providence whose counsels run along the line 
of ages, and to whom a thousand years are as one day ? 



SPEECH 

AT A PUBLIC MEETING, HELD AT ST PAUL'S CHURCH, BOSTON, 
21ST MAY, 1833, ON BEHALF OF KENYON COLLEGE, OHIO. 



The lucid exposition, which has been made of the object of 
the meeting, by the right reverend bishop (Mcllvaine), lightens the 
task of recommending it to an audience like this. I do not know 
but I should act more advisedly, to leave his cogent and persua- 
sive statement to produce its natural effect, without any attempt on 
my part, to enforce it. But as we have assembled to communi- 
cate our mutual impressions on the subject ; — to consult with each 
other, whether we can do any thing, and whether we will do any 
thing, to promote the object in view, (which, I own, seems to me 
one of high moment), I will, with the indulgence of the meeting, 
and at the request of those by whom it is called, briefly state the 
aspect in which the matter presents itself to my mind. 

I understand the object of the meeting to be, to aid the funds of 
a rising seminary of learning, in the interior of the State of Ohio, 
particularly with a view to the training up of a well-educated min- 
istry of the gospel, in that part of the United States ; — and the 
claims of such an object on this community. 

As to the general question of the establishment and support of 
places of education, there are principally two courses, which have 
been pursued in the practice of nations. One is, to leave them, 
so to say, as an after-thought, — the last thing provided for ; — to let 
the community grow up, become populous, rich, powerful ; an 
immense body of unenlightened peasants, artisans, traders, soldiers, 



32 1 i \ BRETT'S ORATIONS. 

subjected to a small privileged class; — and then lei learning creep 
in with luxurj : be esteemed itself a luxury, endowed ouj of the 
surplus of vasl private fortunes, or endowed by the state; and, in- 
stead of diffusing a wholesome general influence, of which all par- 
take, and bj which the entire character of the people is softened 
and elevated, forming itself but another of those circumstances ol 
disparity and jealous contrast of condition, ol' which too main were 
in existence before; adding the aristocracy of learning, acquired 
at expensive seats ofscii nee. to that of rank and wealth. This is, 
in general, the course, winch has been pursued with respecl to the 
establishment of places of education, in some countries of Europe. 
The other method is, thai introduced by our forefathers, viz., to 
lay the foundations of the commonwealth on the corner-stone of 
religion and education : — to make the means of enlightening the 
community go hand in hand with the means for protecting it against 
in enemies, extending its commerce, and increasing its numbers ; 
to make the care of the mind, from the outset, a part of its public 

economv : the growth of knowledge a portii I Its public wealth. 

This, sir, i> the New-England system. It is the system on which 
the colony ol Massachusetts was led, in L 647, to order thai a school 
should be supported in every tow n, and w Inch, eleven j ears earlier, 
earned tiie foundations of Harvard college to he laid, by an appro- 
priation out of the scantj means of the country, and at a period of 
greal public distress, of a sum equal to the whole amount , 
during the year, tor all the other public charges. I do not know 
in what words 1 can so well describe this system, as in those used 
by our fathers themselves. Quoted as they have been times innu- 
merable, they will bear quoting again ; and seem to me peculiarly 
apposite to this occasion : ' Viler God had carried us safe to V 
England, and we had huilded our houses, provided necessaries for 
our livelihood, n ared convenii nl places for God's worship, and set- 
tled the civil government, one of the next things we longed for 
and looked alter, was to advance learning, and perpetuate it to pos- 
terity ; dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches, 
when the presenl ministers shall be in the dust.' 

\ .'. . sir, it i^ proposed to assist our brethren in Ohio, to lay the 
foundations of their commonwealth on this good old New-England 
basis; and if ever there was a region where it was peculiarly 1 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 325 

client that this should be done, most assuredly the western part of 
America, — and the State of Ohio as much as any other portion of 
it, — is that region. It is two centuries since New-England was 
founded, and its population, by the last census, fell short of two 
millions. Forty years ago, Ohio was a wilderness, and by the same 
enumeration, its population was little less than a million. At this 
moment, the population of Ohio, (the settlement of which was 
commenced in 1788, by a small party from our counties of Essex 
and Middlesex), is almost twice as large as that of our ancient and 
venerable Massachusetts. I have seen this wonderful State, with 
my own eyes. The terraqueous globe does not contain a spot 
more favorably situated. Linked to New-Orleans on one side, by 
its own beautiful river, and the father of waters, and united to New 
York, on the other side, by the lake and the Erie canal, she has, 
by a stupendous exertion of her own youthful resources, completed 
the vast circuit of communication between them. The face of the 
country is unusually favorable to settlement. There is little waste 
or broken land. The soil is fertile, the climate salubrious ; it is 
settled by as true-hearted and substantial a race, as ever founded a 
republic ; and there they now stand, a million of souls, gathered 
into a political community, in a single generation ! 

Now it is plain, that this extraordinary rapidity of increase re- 
quires extraordinary means, to keep the moral and intellectual 
growth of the people on an equality with their advancement in 
numbers and prosperity. These last take care of themselves. 
They require nothing but protection from foreign countries, and 
security of property, under the ordinary administration of justice. 
But a system of institutions for education, — schools and colleges, — 
requires extra effort and means. The individual settler can fell 
the forest, build his log-house, reap his crops, and raise up his 
family in the round of occupations pursued by himself; — but he 
cannot, of himself, found or support a school, far less a college ; 
nor can he do as much toward it, as a single individual, in older 
States, where ampler resources and a denser population afford 
means, cooperation, and encouragement, at every turn. The very 
fact, therefore, that the growth of the country in numbers has 
been unexampled, instead of suggesting reasons why efforts in the 
cause of education are superfluous, furnishes an increased and 



326 I I ERETT'8 OB \Tlo.\-. 

increasing claim on the sympathy and good offices of all the friends 
of learning and education. 

\\ hat, then, are the reasonable grounds of the claim, as made 
on us : I think I perceive se\ eral. 

W e live in a community comparatively ancient, possessed of an 
abundance of accumulated capital, the resuh of the smiles of Prov- 
idence on the industry of the people. W e prof) ss to place a high 
value on intellectual improvement, on education, on religion, and 
on the institutions for it- support. We habituall) take credit that 
we do so. To whom should the infant community, destitute of 
th( -e institution-, desirous of enjoying their benefits, and as yel Dot 
abounding in disposable mean-, to w hom should thej look ? Whith- 
er shall they go, but to their brethren, who are able to appreciate 
the want, and competent to relieve it? Some one must do it; 
these institutions, struggling into existence, must be nurtured, or 
they sink. To w hat quarter can the} address themselves, with 
any prospect of success, if the} fail here? Where will the) find 
a community more lik< I) to take an interest in the object, — to fe< I 
a livelier sympath) in the want. — mere liberal; mure able to give, 
more accustomed to give : 

It is not merely in the necessity of things, thai young and ris- 

communities, if assisted at ail, should derive that assistance 

from the older and richer: but the period is SO short, since we our- 

selves Stood in that relation to (he mother country, and derived 

from her bount) . benefactions to our institutions, that the obligation 

to requite these favors, in tl ly practicable way, is fresh and 

strong, and like that which requires a man to pay his debts. Dr 
Franklin was accustomed sometimes to bestow a pecuniary favor 
on a young man. and. instead of requiring payment, to enjoin the 
object of his bounty, when advanced in life, and in prosperous 
circumstances, to give the same sum of money, with a like injunc- 
tion, to some other meritorious and needs young person. The 
early annals of our country contain main instances of liberality 
from beyond the ocean. Our own university and that of V \ 
Haven, W( lj indebted, — particularly our-. — to pious and 

benevolenl individuals in England. 1 know no mode of requiting 
these favors, (which we cannot repaj to the country from which 

we received diem ; — she want- nothing we can give, — ) more nat- 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 327 

ural and more simple, than by imitating the liberality of which we 
have profited, and supplying the wants of others, at that stage of 
their social progress, at which our own were supplied. 

The inducements to such an exercise of liberality on our part, 
toward our brethren in the West, are certainly stronger than those 
which could have influenced England to assist the rising institutions 
of America. The settlers of the western country are not the 
aggrieved and persecuted children of the older States. We have 
not driven them out from among us, by cruel star-chamber edicts, 
nor have they, in leaving us, shaken off from their feet the dust of 
an unfriendly soil. They have moved away from the paternal 
roof, to seek a new but not a foreign home. They have parted 
from their native land, neither in anger nor despair; but full of 
buoyant hope and tender regret. They have gone to add to the 
American family, not to dismember it. They are our brethren, 
not only after the flesh, but after the spirit also, in character and 
in feeling. We, in our place, regard them, neither with indiffer- 
ence, jealousy, nor enmity, but with fraternal affection, and true 
good will. Whom, in the name of Heaven, should we assist, if 
we refuse to assist them ? What, sir, can we minister to the intel- 
lectual and spiritual wants of Syria, and of Greece, of Burmah, of 
Ceylon, and of the remotest isles of the Pacific ; — have we enough 
and to spare for these remote nations and tribes, with whom we 
have no nearer kindred, than that Adam is our common parent, 
and Christ our common Saviour ; and shall we shut our hands on 
the call for the soul's food, which is addressed to us, by these our 
brethren, our school-mates ; — whose fathers stood side by side with 
ours, in the great crisis of the country's fortune ; — whose forefathers 
rest, side by side, with ours, in the sacred soil of New-England ? 
I say nothing, sir, in disparagement of the efforts made to carry 
the Gospel to the farthest corners of the earth. I bid them God- 
speed, with all my heart. But surely, the law of Christian love 
will not permit us, in our care for the distant heathen, to overlook 
the claims of our fellow citizens at home. 

On a theme like this, I am unwilling to appeal to any thing like 
interest ; nor will I appeal to an interest of a low and narrow char- 
acter ; but I cannot shut my eyes on those great considerations of 
an enlarged policy, which demand of us a reasonable liberality 



328 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

tow ani the improvement of these w estern communities. Jn the year 
I BOO, the State of ( )liio sent one member to Congress ; and Mas- 
sachusetts, (not thru separated from Maine), sent twenty-one. 

Now, Ohio sends nineteen, and Massachusetts, — recently, and, I 
am constrained to add. in my judgment, unfairly,* deprived of one 
of her members, — sends but twelve. Nor w ill it stop here. • They 
must increase, and we, in comparison, must decrease.' At the 
next periodica] enumeration, Ohio w ill probably be entitled to Dear- 
ly thirtj representatives, and Massachusetts to little more than a 
third of this number. N< . . i will not, on this occasion, and 
in this house of praj er, unneci introduce topics and illustra- 

tions, Inner befitting other resorts. I will nol descant on interests 
and questions, which, in the divided state of the public councils, 
w ill be decided, one w ay or the other, by a small majority of voices. 
I realh wish to elevate my own mind, and, as far as lies in me, 
the minds of those I have the honor to address, to higher views. 
1 would ask you, not in reference to this or that question, but in 
reference to the whole complexion of the destinies of the country, 
as depending on the action of the general government; [would 
ask you as to that momentous future, which lies before US and OUT 
children. — by whom, by what influence, from what quarter, is our 
common country, with all the rich treasure of its character, its 
hope-, its fortune-, to he affected, to be controlled, to be sustained, 
and guided in the paths of wisdom, honor, and prosperity, or sunk 
into the depth < ii racy and humiliation ? Sir. the response 

i- in every man's mind, — on every man'- lip-. The balance of 
the country's fortunes is in the West. There lie, wrapped up in 
the folds of an eventful futurity, the influences, which will most 
powerfully affect our national weal and woe. We have, in the 
order of Providence, allied ourselves to a family of sister commu- 
nities, springing into existence, and increasing with unexampled 
rapidity. We have called them into a full partnership in the 

eminent ; the course of evi 111 i has pu1 crow [IS on their head-, and 
sceptri - in their hands ; and we must abide the result. 



I', adopting a ratio of representation which left. Massachusetts with an nnrep- 
eeented fraction sufficient) within a few hundreds, for unotbi 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 329 

/ 

But has the power indeed departed from us ; the efficient ulti- 
mate power? That, sir, is, in a great measure, as we will. The 
real government in this country is that of opinion. Toward the 
formation of the public opinion of the country, New-England, 
while she continues true to herself, will, as in times past, contribute 
vastly beyond the proportion of her numerical strength. But be- 
sides the general ascendancy which she will maintain, through the 
influence of public opinion, we can do two things to secure a strong 
and abiding interest in the West, operating, I do not say, in our 
favor, but in favor of principles and measures, which we think sound 
and salutary. The first is, promptly to extend toward the West, 
on every fitting occasion which presents itself consistently with 
public and private duty, either in the course of legislation or the 
current of affairs, those good offices, which of right pertain to the 
relative condition of the two parts of the country ; — To let the 
West know, by experience, both in the halls of Congress and the 
channels of commercial and social intercourse, that the East is truly, 
cordially, and effectively her friend ; not her rival nor enemy. 

The kindly influence thus produced will prove of great power 
and value ; and will go far to secure a return of fraternal feeling 
and political sympathy ; but it will not of itself, on great and try- 
ing occasions of a supposed diversity of sectional interest, always 
prove strong enough to maintain a harmony of councils. But we 
can do another thing, of vastly greater moment. We can put in 
motion a principle of influence, of a much higher and more gener- 
ous character. We can furnish the means of building up institutions 
of education. We can, from our surplus, contribute toward the 
establishment and endowment of those seminaries, where the mind 
of the West shall be trained and enlightened. Yes, sir, we can 
do this ; and it is so far optional with us, whether the power to 
which we have subjected ourselves, shall be a power of intelligence 
or of ignorance ; a reign of reflection and reason, or of reckless 
strength ; a reign of darkness or of light. This, sir, is true states- 
manship, — this is policy, of which Washington would not be 
ashamed. While the partisan of the day plumes himself upon a 
little worthless popularity, gained by bribing the interest of one 
quarter, and falling in with the prejudices of another ; it is truly wor- 
thy of a patriot, by contributing toward the means of steadily, dif- 
41 



330 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

fusively, and permanently enlightening the public mind, as far as 
opportunity exists, in every part of the country, to secure; it in a 
wise and liberal course of public policy. 

Lei mi Bostonian capitalist, then, — let no man, who has a large 

stake in New-England, and who is called upon to aid this institu- 
tion in the centre of Ohio, think that he is called upon to exercise 
bis liberality at a distance, towards those in whom he has no con- 
cern. Sir, it i- his own interest he i- called upon to promote. It 
is not their work he i- called upon to do ; it is his own work. It 
i- in_\ opinion, which, though it may sound extravagant, will. I be- 
lieve, hear examination, that, if the question were propounded to 
in. thi- moment, whether it were most lor the benefit of Massachu- 
setts, to give fifty thousand dollars toward (bunding another college 
in Middlesex, Hampshire, or Berkshire, or for the support of this 
college in the Ohio, we should, if well advised, decide for the lat- 
ter. We have Harvard, Amherst, Williams ; — we do not want 
another college. In the West, is a vast and growing population, 
possessing a great and increasing influence in the political system 
of which we are members. Is it for our interest, strongly, vitally 
for our interest, tint this population should he intelligent, and well 
educated; or ignorant, and enslaved to all the prejudices which 
besel an ignorant people ? 

When, then, the right reverend bishop, and the friends of the 
West, ask you, on this occasion, to help them, they ask you, in 

effect, to -pare a part of _\ our surplus mean-, for an object in w hieh. 

. the least, you have a common interest with them. They 

ask you to contribute to give security to your own property, by 

diffusing the mean- of li-lu and truth throughout the region, where 

so much of the power to preserve or lo -hake it re-id. vs. They 

ask you to contribute to perpetuate the Union, by training up a 

well educated population, in the quarter which ma) hereafter he 

exposed to strong centrifugal influences. Tbej ask you to recruit 
your waning strength in the national council-, by enlisting on your 
Bide their swelling numbers, reared in the discipline of sound learn- 
ing and sober wisdom ; so that when your voice in the government 
shall become comparatively weak, instead of being drowned li\ a 
strange and unfriendly clamor from this mighty region, it may !»■ re- 
d with iii- Lrength and a sympathetic response, from 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 331 

the rising millions of the North-Western State/3. Yes, sir, they do 
more. They ask you to make yourselves rich in their respect, 
good will, and gratitude ; — to make your name dear and venerable 
in their distant shades. They ask you to give their young men 
cause to love you, now in the spring-time of life, before the heart 
is chilled and hardened ; — to make their old men, who in the morn- 
ing of their days went out from your borders, lift up their hands for 
blessings on you, and say, ' Ah, this is the good old-fashioned liber- 
ality of the land where we were born.' Yes, sir, we shall raise an 
altar in the remote wilderness. Our eyes will not behold the 
smoke of its incense, as it curls up to heaven. But there the altar 
will stand ; — there the pure sacrifice of the spirit will be offered 
up ; and the worshipper who comes, in all future time, to pay his 
devotions before it, will turn his face to the Eastward, and think of 
the land of his benefactors. 



S l> E E C H 

DELIVERED in rwr.iu. HALL, --in HAY, L833, ON THE SUBJECT 

OF THE B1 nki.k-IIII.I. mum MENT.* 



Mb President, and Brethren of the Massachusetts Charitable 
Mechanic Association, 

(For by your favor, I enjoy the privilege of being an honor- 
ary member of thai institution,) when I consider the auspices under 
which this meeting is assembled, when I reflect upon the zeal 
evinced in this cause, by the Mechanic Association, and the mural 
power with which that ho<l\ moves to the accomplishment of any 
object which it takes in hand. I feel a satisfaction which I want 
words in express. It was my fortune to be one of those who took 
an early interesl in the erection ofa monument upon Bunker-Hill. 

In the efforts made to bring forward and carry on this -real work, 

I bore a \ei\ humble, but, I believe I ma) say, an assiduous and 
laborious part. I gave, sir, all I had to give,— a large portion of 
my time and mj besl efforts, in union with my valued associates, 
to recommend this object to the public favor. I shared with the 
friends of the enterprise, the satisfaction with winch thej witni 
tin' firsi bursl of enthusiasm with which the projeel was welcomed, 

and their regret and mortification. ; ,t finding that the popular ex- 
citement and interest which were to furnish the resources to cany 
on this expensive work did not hold out to it- completion. If it 

* This meet died by the Mai I heritable Mechanic toocia- 

iinii, in i.i'k. inr.i-.urr.., f,,r ill.- eompii -non of the monument 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 



333 



afford satisfaction, or is deemed a duty, in any quarter, to indicate 
faults committed by the early boards of directors, to point out 
errors of judgment into which it is supposed tbey fell, — (errors of 
intention will not, 1 think, be imputed to them), — I, for one, will, 
with meekness, submit to the rebuke, from any individual, who has 
given more of his time, attention, labor, — and money even, in pro- 
portion to tbeir means, — than the members of these much censured 
boards of directors. Nay, sir, even from any one who has not 
done this, I will submit, for one, to any deserved rebuke, if he will, 
— now that tbe work is so far advanced that its completion is mat- 
ter of calculation, and now that the state of the times admits and 
encourages a fresh appeal to tbe liberality of a prosperous commu- 
nity, — step forward and exert himself zealously and effectually in 
the cause. I do not rise to vindicate former boards of directors, 
nor former measures, but to congratulate you, sir, and my fellow 
citizens, on the prospect which is now opening upon the work ; 
and cheerfully, for one, to transfer to those who shall now take it 
up and complete it, the unshared and unqualified credit of the 
patriotic undertaking. The work, I am confident, will now be 
completed. It is taken in hand by those accustomed to finish what 
they undertake ; — and whatever we have done before, I am sure, 
sir, we are now hammering upon the nail that will go. 

Sir, I suppose there can be but one opinion on the question, 
when it is fairly stated. It is not whether the monument shall be 
built, but whether it shall be left incomplete; — not whether it shall 
be begun, but whether it shall be finished. Nay, not even exactly 
this. The question is not whether it shall be finished at all, but, 
whether it shall be finished by us, or, after remaining unfinished 
another half century, a memorial, — not to the renown of the great 
men we commemorate, but to the discredit of this generation of 
their descendants, — the honor of completing it shall be reserved to 
other times, when a more enduring patriotic sentiment shall be 
awakened in its favor. 

That it will be completed, — whether by us or not, — is certain. 
What is already done is as substantial as the great pyramid of 
Egypt. The foundations have been laid with such depth and so- 
lidity, that nothing but an earthquake can shake them. The part 
already constructed will stand to the end of time ; and the real 



334 I \ IRKTT'S ORATION-. 

question which we have to settle is, will we leave it in its present 
state, an object unsightly to the eye, and painful to the mind : or 
will we, who assisted to lay the foundations, enjoy the satisfaction 
of beholding the noble shaft rising in simple majestj towards the 
heavens, where, in the language of that surpassing eloquence, 
which 1 would io heaven, Mr President, could rouse and animate 
us this afternoon. • the earliest light of the morning shall gild it, 
and parting day linger and play on its summit.' 

But, sir. I wrong myself, and I wrong mj fellow citizens gather- 
ed around, in treating this subject, as if the strongesl reason lor 
completing the monument arose from mortification and regret, at 
leaving it in its present slate. Far otherwise, I know, sir, do you 
\iew this question; far otherwise do I \iew it myself. 'Those 
great patriotic and moral inducements which originally prompted 
the enterprise, remain in unimpaired force, and must gather strength 
with each succeeding year. The idea which lav at the basis of 
this undertaking was. to redeem from all desecrating uses, and de- 
vote to the eternal rcmemhrnce of the event of which it was the 
scene, the sacred summit o( Bunker-Hill, and to erect upon its 
hei'Jil a plain hut majestic monumental structure, to identify the 
spot to the latest time. This idea was firsl conceived hy an amia- 
ble and accomplished fellow citizen, now no more, (the late Wil- 
liam Tudor), when the hall" century was near expiring, since the 
occurrence of the event. It was h\ him communicated to a circle 

of friends, and hy them to the public, by whose favor the enter- 
prise was so far advanced, that the corner stone was laid in the 
presence of such an assembly as was perhaps never before witness- 
ed, on the jubilee anniversary of the battle, — the 17th of June, 
L825. It was my misfortune, sir. not to he present on that auspi- 
cious day. I was absenl on the public Service, at a distance. I>ut 

I know too well the feelings which animated the mighty multitude 

gathered together on that hallowed spot, in the presi uce of the na- 
tion's guest, returning from his triumphant progress through the 
I nion. in the presi nee ol the time-worn and revered remnants ol 
the battle and ol' the war. anil within the hearing of that all-elo- 

quent voice, which poured forth iis deepest and richest strains on 

the glorious occasion. — not to appeal feaiiessl] to all who heard it. 
— thai they felt that it was good to he there. Tin v felt that the 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. -j'-jO 

event deserved to be commemorated ; that the spot ought, through 
all time, to be marked out and kept sacred ; and that this genera- 
tion owed it to that which preceded us, and bought for us, with its 
blood, this great heritage of blessings, to erect upon this spot a 
monumental structure, which should last as long as our freedom 
shall last; — as long as a happy posterity of Americans shall have 
cause to cherish, with pious gratitude, the memory of their fathers. 

And do not these reasons still exist ? Is the spot less precious, 
now that eight more seasons have wept their dews over the dear 
and sacred blood, that has remained for eight more years uncom- 
memorated beneath the sod ? Are the valor, the sell-devotion of the 
heroes of that day, — of Warren, and Prescott, and Putnam, and 
Stark, and their gallant associates, less deserving of celebration ? 1 3 
this mighty and eventful scene in the opening drama of the revolu- 
tion less worthy of celebration, now that eight more years, in the 
prosperous enjoyment of our liberties, contrasted as they have been 
with disastrous struggles in other countries, have given us fresh cause 
for gratitude to our fathers ? 

But I am met with the great objection. What good will the Mon- 
ument do? I beg leave, sir, to exercise my birthright as a Yankee, 
and answer this question, by asking two or three more, to which I 
believe it will be quite as difficull to furnish a satisfactory reply. I 
am asked, What good will the Monument do? And, I ask, What 
good does any thing do? What is good? Does any thing do any 
good? The persons who suggest this objection, of course, think 
that there are some projects and undertakings, that do good ; 
and I should therefore like to have the idea of good, ex- 
plained, and analyzed, and run out to its elements. When this is 
done, if I do not demonstrate, in about two minutes, that the Mon- 
ument does the same kind of good that any thing else does, I will 
consent that the huge blocks of granite, already laid, should be re- 
duced to gravel, and carted off to fill up the mill-pond; for that I 
suppose is one of the good things. Does a rail-road or canal do 
good ? Answer, Yes. And how ? It facilitates intercourse, — 
opens markets, — and increases the wealth of the country. But 
what is this good for? Why, individuals prosper and get rich. 
And what good does that do ? Is mere wealth, as an ultimate 
end, — wold and silver, without an inquiry as to their use, — are 



336 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

these a good? Certainly not. I should insult this audience bi 
attempting to prove, that a rich man. as such, is neither hetter nor 
happier, than a poor one? Hut a- men grow rich, thej live better, 
[s there an) good in this, stopping here? Is mere animal life. — 
feeding, working, and sleeping like an ox, — entitled to he called 
good : Certainly not. Bui these improv< raents increase the pop- 
ulation. And what good does that do? Where i> the good in 
counting twelve millions instead of six of mere feeding, working, 
sleeping animals ? There is then no good in the mere animal life, ex- 
cepl that it is the phj sical basis of that higher moral existence, which 
resides in the soul, the heart, the mind, the conscience; in good 
principles, good feelings, and the good actions, (and the more dis- 
interested, the more entitled to be called good), which flow from 
them. .Now-, sir, 1 say that generous and patriotic sentiments; 
sentiments, which prepare us to serve our country, to live for our 
country, to die for our country, — feelings like those, which carried 
Prescott, and Warren, and Putnam to the battle-field', are good, — 
good, humanly speaking, of the highest order. It is good to have 
them, good to encourage them, good to honor them, good to commem- 
orate them : — and w hatever tend- to cherish, animate and strength- 
en such feelings, does as much righl down practical good, as filling 
up low -rounds and building rail-roads. This is m \ demonstration. 
1 wish, sir, not to lie misunderstood. 1 admit the connexion be- 
tween enterprises, which promote the physical prosperity of the 
Country, and its intellectual and moral improvement: hut I main- 
tain, that it is only this connexion that gives these enterprises all 
their value ; and that the same connexion gives a like value to 

every thing else, which, through the channel of the senses, the 
taste, or the imagination, warms and elevates the heart. 

Bu( we are told that BOOKS will do all this: that BISTORT will 
record the exploits we would commemorate, and carry them, with 
the spot on which they were acted out. down to the latest poster- 
ity. Even my worthj friend, who basjusl addressed us, although 
[ am sure he agrees with me in substance, and although 1 admit 
the superior efficacy of the art of printing over that of writin 
perpetuating the remembrance of the past. — vet seen* d to me to 
give a little too much weighl to this objection. 1 am inclined to 
doubt whether it he sound in any sense; I am confident it is not. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 337 

to the extent to which it is made. That history will preserve the 
memory of the hattle of Bunker-Hill, I certainly do not douht ; 
but that history alone, without sensible monuments, would preserve 
the knowledge of the identity of the spot is not so certain. The 
fame of the immortal plain of Troy, commemorated by the first of 
bards in time and renown, is coeval with history, and embalmed 
in its earliest pages. But where the site of Troy is, I have the 
best reason to know is very doubtful. Books have surely done 
here, as much as they can ever do. A man may seek it with Stra- 
bo in his head and Homer in his heart, and he shall not find it. 
Even the still existing natural features of the scene are not suffi- 
cient to identify it. The ' broad Hellespont ' still rolls into the 
iEgean. Tenedos, that rich and most famous island city, — which, 
when JEneas told his tale to Dido, had sunk into a treacherous 
port, — still keeps its station in front of the Troad ; but if the 
spot where Troy stood can be settled at all, it is principally by the 
simple mound, still standing, and, as is supposed, erected to Achil- 
les. History tells us of the memorable pass of Thermopylae, 
where Leonidas and his brave associates encountered the barbarous 
invader. I have searched in vain for the narrow pass between 
the foot of the mountain and the sea. It is gone. Time, which 
changes all things, has changed the great natural features of the 
spot, — in which not merely its geographical, but, if I may say so, 
its moral identity resided, — and has stretched out a broad plain in 
its place ; but a rude monumental pile still remains to designate 
the spot where the Spartan hero fell. History tells us of the field 
of Cannae, where Hannibal overthrew the Roman consuls, and 
slaughtered forty thousand of their troops, till the Aufidus ran 
blood. Why, sir, you cannot, with your Livy in your hand, retrace 
the locality. History has preserved us the story of the battle of 
Pharsalia, where the star of Caesar prevailed over the star of Pom- 
pey ; a battle which fixed the fortunes of the world for fifteen cen- 
turies. It is impossible, even with the Commentaries of Caesar for 
your guide, precisely to fix the spot where it was fought. History 
tells us of the battle of Philippi, where Brutus and Cassius, and 
with them the last hopes of Roman liberty were cloven down ; but 
historians do not all agree, within two or three hundred miles, as to 
the precise scene of the action. Now, sir, I trust that the memory 
42 



:>:H evkuett's orations. 

of Bunker-Hill will be preserved in history a- long BS that of Troy, 
of Thermopylae^ of Cannae, of Pharsalia, or of Philippi ; but who 

is there, that would not wi>h that the identity of this precious spot 
should be transmitted with its name to posterity ; so thai w hen our 
children, in after times, shall visit these hallowed pieclDCtS, they 
ma\ know and be assured, that thev Stand upon the very sod, that 

was moistened bj the life-blood of the martyrs of that eventful 
day ? 

But I know and admit, that bistorj will perform her dut) to 
those who foughl and fell at Hunker-Hill. Her duty, did I say r 

It will he her most glorious prerogative to record their deeds, in 

letters ol' light, on one of the brightest pages in the annals of 
freedom. There, when the tongues we now speak are forgotten, 
the) will hi' read, as long and as widely, as though we 

' Could write their Dames en every .-tar that shines ; 
Engrave their story on the living sky, 
To be for ever read by every eye.' 

But bistor) would do this, though Bunker-Hill were surrendered 
to-morrow to the pick-axe and the spade ; — though it were levelled 
to its base; — though it were torn from its mots, and cast into the 
sea. But, sir, though books will do what they can, they cannot 
do all things. There are some things which thev cannot do; no. 
not if the muse of bistor) herself, in bodily presentment, should 
take her stand on Bunker- Hill, to describe the scene. There are 
things not in the physical Competi uce of hooks to effect. Can 
the dead letter of history present you the glowing lineaments of 
your Washington, as be looks down upon you from that wall? or 
reproduce to you his majestic form in the chiselled marble? Who 
does not gaze with delight on the portrait or the statue of the Fa- 
ther of bis Country, where Stuart, and Chantrey, and CanOVS 
have wrought up the silenl canvass and the cold marble into life 
and beaut) : History would transmit tin 1 record of what he was 
and what he did. though with sacrilegious hands, we should tear 
his image from these walls, or grind bis statue to powder. But 

shall we. for this reason, even while we stand within the light of 

his benignant countenance, rind the heart to ask, what good does 
it do ? 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 339 

Sir, the man that asks such a question, takes a partial and super- 
ficial view of his own nature ; he belies himself. There is an 
original element in our natures, — a connexion between the senses, 
the mind and the heart, — implanted by the Creator for pure and 
noble purposes, which cannot be reasoned away. You cannot ar- 
gue men out of their senses and feelings ; and after you have 
wearied yourself and others, by talking about books and history, 
you cannot set your foot upon the spot where some great and mem- 
orable exploit was achieved, especially by those with whom you 
claim kindred, but your heart swells within you. You do not now 
reason ; you feel the inspiration of the place. Your cold philoso- 
phy vanishes ; and you are ready to put off the shoes from off your 
feet, for the place whereon you stand is holy ground. A language 
which letters cannot shape, which sounds cannot convey, speaks, 
not to the understanding, but to the heart. 

Such a spot is the field of battle on Bunker-Hill, already rescued 
from impending desecration. It is now proposed to enclose this 
memorable spot ; to restore it, as near as possible, to its condition 
on the 17th of June, 1775, so that all who shall make their pilgrimage 
to it, may be able to retrace, as on a map, each incident of the 
eventful day ; to plant around its borders a few trees from our na- 
tive forests ; and to complete the erection of the monumental 
shaft already begun, simple in its taste, grand in its dimensions and 
height, and of a solidity of structure, which shall defy the power of 
time. 

And now, I appeal to you, Mr Chairman and fellow citizens, 
that such a work, on such a spot, is in accordance with the best 
principles and purest feelings of our nature. It speaks to the 
heart. The American who can gaze on it with indifference, does 
not deserve the name of American. I would say of such a one, 
if one could be found so cold and heartless, in the language of the 
great genius of the age, of a fancied being of kindred apathy ; — 

' Breathes there the man of soul so dead ? — 
If such there breathe, go, mark him well ; 
For him no minstrel raptures swell. 
Proud though his title, high his fame, 
Boundless his wealth, as wish could claim ; 
In 6pite of title, power, and pelf, 
The wretch, concentred all in self, 



340 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

Living, shall forfeit fair renown, 

And, doublj dying, shall go down 

To the \ile earth, from whence he sprung, 

I nwept] onhonored, and unsung.' 

I think I can bring this to a practical issue in every man's mind. 
Is there any one who hears me, and will figure to himself the as- 
pect of the work, as it will appear when it is completed: — who 
will place himself, in imagination, on the summit of the beautiful 
hill where the battle was fought; look out upon the prospect, of 
unsurpassed loveliness, that spreads before him, by land and by sea; 
the united features of town and country; the long rows of build- 
ings and streets in the city, rising one above another, upon the 
sides of her triple hills ; the surrounding sweep of country, check- 
ered with prosperous villages ; on one side the towers of city 
churches, on the other the long succession of rural spires ; the riv- 
ers that How on either side to the sea; the broad expanse of the 
harbor and bay, spotted with verdant islands, — with a hundred 
ships, dancing in every direction over the waves ; the vessels of 
war, keeping guard with their sleeping thunders, at the foot of the 
hill ; — and on its top, within the shade of venerable trees, over the 
ashes of the great and good, the noble obelisk, rising to the heav- 
ens, and crowning the magnificent scene; — is there any one who 
will look at this picture, with his mind's eye, and not be willing to 
contribute, in proportion to his means, to do the little, which re- 
mains to be done, to realize it ? 

There have been times when 1 have desponded ; but I do so no 
longer. I am sure the work will lie (lone. 1 bear good auguries and 

words of encouragement on all sides. I cannot mistake, when I 

think 1 perceive that the true spirit is awakened. 

The time is well adapted to the i\vv(\. It is now eight years 
-nice the comer -tone was laid, on the day that completed the half 
century from the battle. Let US this war urge the work to the 

close, with the completion of the half ceniui'v. since the termina- 
tion of the war. If we celebrated the grand commencement of 
hostilities, in the foundation ; let us bring forth the top-stone, in 

happ) commemoration of the return of peace. 

I believe, sir, as I have already said, that the work is in the 

proper hand-. I mean no In I OUifi compliment : I speak w hat his- 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 341 

tory avouches, that the Mechanics, as a class, were prime agents, 
in all the measures of the Revolution. It was with them that 
Warren, and Hancock, and Adams took counsel in dark and trying 
hours. As a class, they contributed their full quota to the armies 
that fought the battles of our freedom : — and when the war was 
over, and it remained to be seen, whether we had reaped any sub- 
stantial fruit from the contest ; when the Constitution was propos- 
ed, — when it was laboring, — when it was in imminent danger of 
miscarriage, — the Mechanics, as a class, put their shoulders to the 
wheel, and urged it into action. Who so fit to take an ener- 
getic and decisive lead, in achieving this great work of commem- 
oration ? 

I rejoice, above all, in this day's meeting ; and that the doors of 
Faneuil Hall have been thrown open to this great and patriotic as- 
semblage ; a temple worthy the offering. The spirit of the Rev- 
olution is enshrined within its columns ; and old Faneuil Hall seems 
to respond to old Bunker-Hill ; — this with the ancient thunders of 
its eloquence, and that with the thunders of the battle ; — as deep 
calleth unto deep, with the noise of its water-spouts. It was be- 
neath this roof that the spirits of our fathers were roused to that 
lofty enthusiasm, which led them up, calm and unresisting, to the 
flaming terrors of the mount of sacrifice ; — and well does it become 
us, their children, to gather beneath the venerable arches, and 
resolve to discharge the debt of gratitude and duty to their memory ! 

Two of the periods assigned to a generation of men have passed 
away, since the immortal Warren appeared before his fellow citi- 
zens, on the memorable anniversary of the 5th of March. He 
was, at that time, in the very dawn of manhood, and as you behold 
him in yonder delineation of his person. Amiable, accomplished, 
prudent, energetic, eloquent, brave ; he united the graces of a man- 
ly beauty to a lion heart, a sound mind, a safe judgment, and a 
firmness of purpose, which nothing could shake. At the period to 
which I allude, he was but just thirty-two years of age ; — so young, 
and already the acknowledged head of the cause ! He had never 
seen a battle-field, but the veterans of Louisburg and Quebec look- 
ed up to him as their leader ; and the hoary headed sages, who 
had guided the public councils for a generation, came to him for 
advice. Such he stood, the organ of the public sentiment, on the 



342 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

occasion just mentioned. At the close of his impassioned address, 
after having depicted the labors, hardships, and sacrifices endured 
by our ancestors, in the cause of liberty, he broke forth in the thril- 
ling words, 'the voice of our fathers' blood cries to us from the 
ground ! ' Three years only passed away ; the solemn struggle 
came on ; foremost in council, he also was foremost in the battle- 
field, and offered himself a voluntary victim, the first great martyr 
in the cause. Upon the heights of Charlestown, the last that was 
struck down, he fell, with a numerous band of kindred spirits, the 
gray-haired veteran, the stripling in the flower of youth, who had 
stood side by side through that dreadful day, and fell together, like 
the beauty of Israel, on their high places! 

And now, sir, from the summit of Bunker-Hill the voice of our 
fathers' blood cries to us from the ground. It rings in my 
ears. It pleads with us, by the sharp agonies of their dying hour; 
it adjures us to discharge the last debt to their memory. Let us 
hear that awful voice ; and resolve, before we quit these walls, 
that the long-delayed duty shall be performed ; that the work shall 

BE DONE, SHALL BE DONE ! 



SPEECH 

DELIVERED AT A TEMPERANCE MEETING IN SALEM, ON THE 14TH 
OF JUNE, 1833. 



Mr Everett moved the following resolution : — 

Resolved, That, while we behold, with the highest satisfaction, the suc- 
cess of the efforts which have been made for the suppression of intem- 
perance, we consider its continued prevalence as affording the strongest 
motives for persevering and increased exertion. 

Mr Everett then spoke substantially as follows : — 

Mr President, 

When I look around me, and see how many persons there 
are in the assembly, better entitled than myself to the privilege of 
addressing the audience, it is not without great diffidence that I 
present myself before you. But if there are occasions on which 
it is our duty to exert ourselves, in season and out of season, there 
are also objects we should endeavor to promote, in place and out 
of place, if, indeed, a man can ever be out of place, who rises, in 
a civilized and Christian community, to speak in behalf of Tem- 
perance. Emboldened by this reflection, and in compliance with 
your request, I have ventured to submit the resolution which I have 
just read, and of which, with your permission, I will briefly enforce 
the purport ; — and most sincerely can I say, that I never raised my 
voice with a clearer conviction of duty, nor a more cheerful hope 
of the ultimate success of the cause. 



344 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

I am not insensible to the force of the objection which meets us 
on the threshold : — I mean the objection taken to the multiplica- 
tion of what are called self-created societies, and, in general, to the 
free development and application of the social influence which have 
been witnessed in our day. But, though these objections have 
been urged in the most respectable quarter, I have never been able 
to feel their force. I think it will be found, on full examination of 
the matter, that societies are liable to precisely the same objections 
as the action of individual men, that is, they are liable to misap- 
plication and abuse. But 1 believe it would be quite as easy, for 
a powerful and ingenious mind to point out the abuses to which in- 
dividual effort is liable, as those to which societies are exposed ; 
quite as easy to show the good that might have been and has not 
been done ; the reforms which might have been and have not been 
accomplished ; the happiness which might have been and has not 
been enjoyed ; — had the social principle been brought out in a still 
earlier, ampler, and more cordial development. In a word, sir, 
though I am not over-fond of abstract generalities on questions of 
this nature, I cannot but think that the individual principle tends 
to selfishness, to weakness, to barbarism, to ignorance, and to vice ; 
and that the social principle is the principle of benevolence, civili- 
zation, knowledge, genial power, and expansive goodness. On 
this point, however, it would be safer to leave theoretical axioms 
aside. It is, perhaps, enough, to insist on good faith, good temper, 
and sound principle, on the part of societies and individuals. Where 
these prevail, there is little danger of abuse. Where they are ab- 
sent, it little matters whether the public peace is disturbed, the 
cause of reform obstructed, and bad passion nourished, by associa- 
tions or individuals. In fact, in the complicated structure of mod- 
ern society, it is impossible to draw a line between them. It is 
powerful individuals that move societies; it is listening multitudes, 
which '_m\o power to individuals. 

If there is any cause, in which it is right and proper to employ 
the social principle, the promotion of temperance is that cause: for, 

intemperance, in its origin, is peculiarly a social vicet Although, 
in its progress, men may creep away, oul of shame, to indulge the 
depraved appetite in secret, jrel do man, in a state of civilization, 

i> born, I imagine, with a taste so unnatural, that he woidd seek an 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 345 

intoxicating liquor, in the outset, for his ordinary or frequent drink. 
It is usually tasted, for the first time, as the pledge of hospitality, 
and the bond of good fellowship. Idle men, who meet casually 
together, — with kind feelings toward each other, — ask each oiher 
to step into the dram-shop, and < take something to drink,' for 
want of any thing else to say or do ; — and there they swallow the 
liquid poison < to each other's health.' The social circle, the stated 
club, the long protracted sitting at the board, on public occasions, 
the midnight festivities of private assemblies ; — these, nine cases 
out of ten, teach men the fatal alphabet of intemperance; surprise 
them into their first excesses ; break down the sense of shame ; 
establish a sympathy of conscious frailty ; and thus lead them on, 
by degrees, to habitual, and, at length, craving, solitary, and fatal 
indulgence. The vice of intemperance, then, is social in its origin, 
progress, and aggravation ; and most assuredly authorizes us, by 
every rule of reason and justice, in exerting the whole strength of 
the social principle, in the way of remedy. 

If it were possible to entertain a doubt on this point, as a matter 
of theory, that doubt would be removed by the safe test of experi- 
ence. The maxims of temperance are not new ; they are as old 
as Christianity ; as old as any of the inculcations of personal and 
social duty. Every other instrument of moral censure had been 
tried, in the case of intemperance, as in that of other prevailing 
errors, vices, and crimes. The law had done something ; the press 
had done something ; the stated ministrations of religion had done 
something ; but altogether had done but little ; and intemperance 
had reached a most alarming degree of prevalence. At length, the 
principle of association was applied ; societies were formed, meet- 
ings were held, public addresses made, information collected and 
communicated, pledges mutually given, the minds of men excited, 
and their hearts warmed, by comparison of opinions, by concert 
and sympathy ; and within the space of twenty years, of which 
not more than ten have been devoted to strenuous effort, a most 
signal and unexampled reform has been achieved. The bubbling, 
and, as it seemed, perennial fountains of this vice have, in many 
cases, been dried up. The example alluded to by the gentleman 
who has already addressed us, (Dr Pierson), of villages absolutely 
regenerated, is by no means a solitary one. The aspect of many 
43 



346 I \ K RETT'S ORATIONS. 

entire communities has been changed ; and an incalculable amount 
of vice and woe has been prevented. The statistical facts publicly 
brought out at the National Temperance Convention, recently held 
in Philadelphia] abundantly sustain this proposition. 

But. if we arc encouraged in continued and persevering efforts, 
by the success which lias thus far crowned the cause, we ought to 
be still more so, by reflecting upon the extent to which the evil 
still rages. If we arc to obey the injunction of the Roman moral- 
ist, and -'think nothing done, while aught remains to do," what new 
motives to zealous exertion oughl we not to find in the fact, that, 
though much has been done. much. \ci_\ much, remains to he effect- 
ed? I have recently seen it stated, on the authority of the highly 
respectable warden of the state's prison in .Maine, that 'three 
fourths of all the convicts in that establishment wen' led to the 
commission of the crimes, for which they are now suffering impris- 
onment, bj intemperance,' in most cases directly, in others more 
remotely. There are many gentlemen present, no doubt, ahle to 
form an opinion, entitled to full confidence, whether this would be 
an over-estimate tin- the other States in the Union. 1 am inclined, 
in} -elf. to think that it i- not. If we carrj the inquiry a little far- 
ther, from our state prisons to our county gaols and houses of cor- 
rection, I am disposed to believe that the same proportion, also, of 
their inmate-. i- broughl within their walls by intemperance. It i- 
well known, that a considerable portion of the small debts collected 
or attempted to he collected by the law. are for spirituous liquors ; 
and that the least evil this liquor has done its consumers, has been 
to bring them within the poor debtors' ward of a gaol. 

If we pass from vice to pauperism, we shall find a similar result. 
Pauperism i- another of the greatest public Inn-den- ; and i-. at this 
moment, tasking the ingenuity of the state-man and philanthropist 
in Europe and America, a- a great and growing public evil, which 
seems to derive a principle of increase from the measures necessary 
to ii- alleviation. I believe we may, in like manner, set down 
three fourths of the pauperism which prevails, to the direel or re- 
mote influence of intemperance. In fact, intemperance i^ peculiar- 
ly a principle of pauperism ; more directly so than of crime, though 
it tends strongl) enough to crime. Bui every man who depends 
upon his industry lor his support and that of hi- family, by becom- 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 347 

ing intemperate, unavoidably becomes a pauper. His strength and 
health are impaired ; his arm palsied ; his energies stupified ; his 
earnings squandered ; his credit and character sacrificed ; — all 
around him, except those who are unfortunately bound to him by 
ties that cannot be broken, are repelled ; — and the man sinks into 
pauperism, almost as a matter of course. He cannot be rescued. 

But it must not be forgotten, that, in addition to the crimes which 
people our prisons ; in addition to the poverty which seeks a refuge 
in the alms-house ; there is an untold amount, both of want and 
vice in the world, which, although not exposed to the public view, 
either in the prisons or poor-houses, exists, and inflicts the most 
cruel sufferings and sorrows on a large part of the human family ; 
and of this vice and want, a very large proportion is produced by in- 
temperance. Take the case of a man, in easy circumstances, in 
town or country, of intemperate habits, but yet retaining self-con- 
trol enough to manage his property, and honesty enough to keep 
out of gaol. This man, of course, will be neither a convict nor a 
pauper ; on the contrary, he may fill what is called a respectable 
station in society ; and yet, under the influence of a daily indul- 
gence in ardent spirits, he may be the very tyrant of his household ; 
never pleased, never soothed, never gratified, when the utmost has 
been done by every body to gratify him ; often turbulent and out- 
rageous ; sometimes cruel ; the terror of those whom he is bound 
by every law of God and man to protect ; the shame of those 
whom nature teaches to reverence and love him. Such a man falls 
not into the clutches of the law ; but, in a moral point of view, I 
deem him much more criminal than the ignorant, weak-minded, 
needy, sorely tempted creature, who cannot resist the temptation 
of passing a counterfeit bill, for which he is sentenced, for two or 
three years, to the state's prison. Such a man does not take ref- 
uge in the alms-house, nor drive his family to it ; but the coarsest 
and hardest bread that is broken within its walls, is a dainty, com- 
pared with the luxuries of his cheerless table. 

Then, — as to poverty. I believe the poverty out of the alms- 
house, produced by intemperance, is greater in the amount of suf- 
fering which it occasions, than the poverty in the alms-house. To 
the victims of drunkenness, whom it has conducted to the alms- 
house, one bitter ingredient of the cup is spared. The sense of 



'.) I- EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

shame, and the struggles of honest pride are at length over. But 
take the case of a person, whose family is dependent on the 
joint labor of its head-. Suppose the man a hard-working me- 
chanic or farmer, the woman an industrious housewife, and the 
familj supported by their united labor, frugality, and diligence. 
The man. as the phrase is, -takes to drink.' V\ hat happens? 
The immediate consequence is, thai the cost of die liquor which 
he consumes, is taken from the fund which was before barely ade- 
quate for their support. They must, therefore, reduce some other 

part of their expenditure. They have no luxuries, and must, ae- 
COrdingl) pinch in the frugal comforts and necessaries of life, in 
wholesome food, in decent clothing, in fuel, in the education of the 
children. As the habit of excess increases, there must be more 
and more of this melancholy retrenchment. The old clothes, al- 
ready worn out, musl be worn longer; the daily fare, none too 
good at the beginning, becomes daily more meagre and scanty; 
the leak in the roof, for want of a nail, a shingle, or a bit of board, 
grows wider every winter: the number of panes of broken glass, 
whose place is poorly supplied with old hats and rags, daily in- 
creases ; but not so the size of the unreplenished wood-pile, which 
no longer furnishes an adequate defence against the piercing ele- 
ments. Before long, the children are kept from school, for want 
of book- and clothing; and. at length, the wretched family are 
ashamed to -how their sordid tatters in the meeting-house, on the 
Sabbath day. .Meantime, the i\\i\d for the support of the family, 
the labor of it- head, although burdened with a constantly growing 
charge for liquor, is diminished, in consequence of the decline oi 
his health, strength, and energy. He is constantly earning less, 
and of what lie earns, constantly consuming more unproductively, 
— destructively. Let this process proceed a year or two. and see 
to what they are reduced, and how poverty passes into crime. 
Look into his hovel, lor such, by this time, it is. when he couie- 
home on Saturday evening : — the wages of his week's labor already 
squandered in - :i . Not wholly intoxicated, he i- yet 1 
with liquor, ami craves more. Listen to the brutal clamor-, a 
panied by threats and oaths, with which he demand- of hi- family 
the food, which thej have been able to procure neither for them- 
selves nor him. See the poor, grow n-up children, — bo) - ami girls, 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 349 

perhaps young men and women, old enough to feel the shame as 
well as the misery of their heritage, — without a tinge of health 
upon their cheeks, without a spark of youthful cheerfulness in their 
eyes, silent and terrified, creeping supperless for the night, to their 
wretched garret, to escape outrage, curses, and blows, from the 
author of their being. Watch the heart-broken wife, as, with a 
countenance haggard with care and woe, she seeks in vain to sup- 
ply the wants of a half-starved, sickly, shrieking babe, out of the 
fountain which hunger, and ill-usage, and despair have exhausted ; 
and then return in the morning, and find her blood, and the infant's, 
wet upon the hearth-stone. Do I paint from the imagination, or 
do I paint from nature ? Am I sporting with your feelings, or 
might I heighten the picture, and yet spare you many a heart-sick- 
ening trait from real life ? 

In a word, sir, when we contemplate intemperance in all its 
bearings and effects on the condition and character of men, I be- 
lieve we shall come to the conclusion, that it is the greatest evil, 
which, as beings of a compound nature, we have to fear: the 
greatest, because striking directly at the ultimate principle of the 
constitution of Man. Let us contemplate this point a moment, 
for within it is comprehended, if I mistake not, the whole philos- 
ophy of this subject. Our life exists in a mysterious union of the 
corporeal and intellectual principles, an alliance of singular intima- 
cy, as well as of strange contrast, between the two extremes of 
beino;. In their due relation to each other, and in the rightful dis- 
charge of their respective functions, I do not know whether the 
pure ethereal essence itself, (at least as far as we can comprehend 
it, which is but faintly), ought more to excite our admiration than 
this most wondrous compound of spirit and matter. I do not know 
that it is extravagant to say, that there is as signal a display of the 
Divine skill in linking those intellectual powers, which are the best 
image of the Divinity, with the forms and properties of matter, as 
in the creation of orders of beings purely disembodied and spiritual. 
When I contrast the dull and senseless clod of the valley, in its 
unanimated state, with the curious hand, the glowing cheek, the 
beaming eye, the discriminating sense which dwells in a thousand 
nerves, I feel the force of that inspired exclamation, ' I am fearful- 
ly and wonderfully made !' And when I consider the action and 



350 I \ I. RETT'S ORATIONS. 

reaction of sou] and body on each other, the impulse given to voli- 
tion from tin 1 senses; and a^ain to the organs by the will; when 
I think how thoughts, — so exalted, that, though they comprehend 
all else, they cannot comprehend the laws of their own existence, 
— are vet able to take a shape in the material air, to issue and 
trawl from one sense in one man to another sense in another man: 
— so that, as the words drop from my lips, the secret chambers of 

the soul are thrown open, and its invisible ideas made manifest, — 

1 am lost in wonder. If to this 1 add the reflection, how the world 
and its affairs are governed, the face of nature changed, oceans 
crossed,continentssettled,families of men gathered and kept tog< ther 
for generations, and monuments of power, wisdom, and taste erect- 
ed, w hieh last for ages after the hands that reared them have mined 
io dust. — and all this by the regencj of thai fine intellectual prin- 
ciple, which sits modestly concealed behind its veil of clay, and 
moves its subject organs, I find no words to express my admiration 
of that union of mind and matter, by which these miracles are 
wrought. Who can thus contemplate the wonder, the beauty, the 
vast utility, the benevolence, the indescribable fitness of this organi- 
zation, and not feel that this vice of intemperance, which aims 
directl) to de-troy it, is the arch-abomination of our natures ; tend- 
ing not nieicK to create a conflict between the nicel} adjusted 
principles; but to assure the triumph of that which is low, base, 
sensual, and earthly, over the heavenly and pure: to convert this 
so curiously organized frame into a disordered, crazy machine, and 
to drag down the -oul to the slavery of grovelling lusts? 

In the first place, there is the shameful abuse of the bounties of 
Providence, which, after making the substantia] provision for the 
supply of our daily wants, — after spreading out the earth, with its 
vegetable stores, as a great table for our nutriment, and appointing 
the inferior animals for our solid food, was pleased, — as it would 
seem, of mere grace and favor, — to add unnumbered cordial spirits 
to gratify and cheer us, — sweel w aters and lively spices, — to till the 
fibres of the cane with its luscious simps, the clusters of the vine, 
with it- cooling juice-, and a hundred aromatic leaves, berries, and 
fruit-, with their refreshing and reviving essences: — and even to 
infuse into the popp) an anodyne against the sharpest pain- our 
frail flesh is heir to ; — 1 a) it is tin fit i aggravation of the sin of 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 351 

intemperance, that it seizes on all these kind and bountiful provis- 
ions, and turns them into a source not of comfort and health, but of 
excess, — indecently revelling at the modest banquet of nature, 
shamefully surfeiting at the sober table of Providence, and con- 
verting every thing that has a life and power, alike the exhilarating 
and the soothing, the stimulant and the opiate, into one accursed 
poison. 

Next come the ravages of this all-destroying vice on the health 
of its victims. You see them resolved, as it were, to anticipate 
the corruption of their natures. They cannot wait to get sick and 
die. They think the worm is slow in his approach, and sluggish 
at his work. They wish to reconvert the dust, before their hour 
comes, into its primitive deformity and pollution. My friend, who 
spoke before me, (Dr Pierson), called it a partial death. I would 
rather call it a double death, by which they drag about with them, 
above the grave, a mass of diseased, decaying, aching clay. They 
will not only commit suicide, but do it in such a way as to be the 
witnesses and conscious victims of the cruel process of self-murder ; 
doing it by degrees, by inches ; quenching the sight, benumbing 
the brain, laying down the arm of industry to be cut off; and 
changing a fair, healthy, robust frame, for a shrinking, suffering, liv- 
ing corpse, with nothing of vitality but the power of suffering, and 
with every thing of death but its peace. 

Then follows the wreck of property, — the great object of human 
pursuit ; the temporal ruin, which comes, like an avenging angel, 
to waste the substance of the intemperate ; which crosses their 
threshold, commissioned, as it were, to plague them with all the 
horrors of a ruined fortune and blasted prospect ; and passes before 
their astonished sight, in the dread array of affairs perplexed, debts 
accumulated, substance squandered, honor tainted, — wife, children 
cast out upon the mercy of the world, — and he, who should have 
been their guardian and protector, dependent for his unearned daily 
bread on those to whom he is a burden and a curse. 

Bad as all this is, much as it is, it is neither the greatest nor the 
worst part of the aggravations of the crime of intemperance. It 
produces consequences of still more awful moment. It first exas- 
perates the passions, and then takes off from them the restraints of 
the reason and will ; maddens and then unchains the tiger, raven- 



352 I \ T. RETT'S ORATIONS. 

iii— for blood ; tramples all the intellectual and moral man under 
the feet of the stimulated clay ; lays the understanding, the kind 
affections, and the conscience, in the same grave with prosperity 

and health ; and, having killed the body, kills the soul! 

Such, faintK described, is the vice of intemperance. Such it 
still exists in our land ; checked, and, as we hope, declining, but 
still prevailing to a degree which invites all our zeal for its effectual 
suppression. Such as I have described it, it exists, I fear, in every 
city, in ever) town, in every village in our country. Such, and 
so formidable is its power. But I rejoice in the belief, that an an- 
tagonist principle of equal power has been brought into the field. 
Public opinion, in all it< strength, is enlisted against it. Men, that 
agree in nothing else, unite in this. Religious divisions are healed 
and party feuds forgotten, in this good cause. Individuals and 
societies, private citizens and the government, have joined, in 
waging war against intemperance; and, above all. the press, — 
the great engine of reform, — is thundering, with all its artillery, 
against it. It is a moment of great interest ; and also of consider- 
able delicacy. That period in a moral reform, in which a great 
evil, that has long passed comparatively unquestioned, is overtaken 
by a sudden hound of Public Opinion, is somewhat critical. In- 
dividuals, a- honesl as their neighbors, are surprised in pursuits and 
practices, sanctioned by tin- former standard of moral sentiment, 
but below the mark of the reform. Tenderness and delicacy are 
necessary, to prevent such persons, by mistaken pride of character, 
from being made enemies of the cause. In our denunciations of 
the evil, we must take care not to include those whom a little 
prudence might bring into cordial cooperation with us in its sup- 
pression. Let us, sir. mingle discretion with our zeal ; and the 
greater will he our success in this pure and noble enterprise. 



ORATION 

DELIVERED AT WORCESTER, ON THE 4tH OF JULY, 1S33. 



Fellow Citizens, 

I have accepted, with great cheerfulness, the invitation with 
which you have honored me, to address you on this occasion. 
The citizens of Worcester did not wait to receive a second call, 
before they hastened to the relief of the citizens of Middlesex, in 
the times that tried men's souls. I should feel myself degenerate 
and unworthy, could I hesitate to come, and, in my humble meas- 
ure, assist you in commemorating those exploits which your fathers 
so promptly and so nobly aided our fathers in achieving. 

Apprised by your committee, that the invitation, which has 
brought me hither, was given on behalf of the citizens of Worces- 
ter, without distinction of party, I can truly say, that it is also, in 
this respect, most congenial to my feelings. I have several times 
had occasion to address my fellow citizens on the fourth of July ; 
and sometimes at periods when the party excitement, — now so 
happily, in a great measure, allayed, — has been at its height ; and 
when custom and public sentiment would have borne me out, in 
seizing the opportunity of inculcating the political views of those 
on whose behalf I spoke. But of no such opportunity have I ever 
availed myself. I have never failed, as far as it was in my power, 
to lead the minds of those whom I have had the honor to address, to 
those common topics of grateful recollection, which unite the pa- 
triotic feelings of every American. It has not been my fault, if 
ever, on this auspicious national anniversary, a single individual 
44 



354 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

has forgotten that he was a brother of one great family, while he 
has recollected that he was a member of a party. 

In fact, fellow citizens, I deem it one of the happiest effects of 
the celebration of this an n i vn>a r\ . that, when undertaken in the 
spirit which has animated you on this occasion, it has a natural 
tendency to soften the harshness of party, which I cannot but re- 
gard as the great bane of our prosperity. It was pronounced by 
the Father of his Country, in his valedictory address to the peo- 
ple of the United States, c the worst enemy of popular govern- 
ments ;' and the experience of almost every administration, from 
his own down, has confirmed the truth of the remark. The spirit 
of parts unquestionably has its source in some of the native pas- 
sions of the heart ; and free governments naturally furnish more 
of its aliment than those under which the liberty of speech and of 
the press is restrained by the strong arm of power. But so natu- 
rally does party run into extremes, so unjust, cruel, and remorseless 
is it in its excess, — so ruthless in the war which it wages against 
private character, — so unscrupulous in the choice of means for the 
attainment of selfish ends, — so sure is it, eventually, to dig the 
grave of those free institutions, of which it pretends to be the ne- 
cessary accompaniment, — so inevitably does it end in military 
despotism and unmitigated tyranny, that I do not know bow the 
voice and influence of a good man could, with more propriety . be 
exerted, than in the effort to assuage its violence. 

We must be strengthened in this conclusion, when we considi r 
that party controversy is constantly showing itself, as unreasonable 
and absurd, as it is unamiable and pernicious. If we needed illus- 
trations of the truth of this remark, we should not be obliged to 
go far to find them. In the unexpected turns that continually 
occur in affairs, events arise, which put to shame the selfish adbe- 
of resolute champions to their party names. No election of 
chief magistrate has ever been more strenuously contested, than 
that which agitated the country the last year; and I do not know 
that paily spirit, in our time at least, has ever run higher, or the 
party press been more virulent on both side-. And what has fol- 
lowed: The election was scarcely decided: the President, thus 
chosen, had not entered upon the second term of his office, before 
the state of things was SO entirely changed, as to produce, in ref- 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 355 

erence to the most important question which has engaged the 
attention of the country since the adoption of the Constitution, 
a concert of opinion among those, who, two months before, had 
stood in hostile array against each other. The measures 
adopted by the President, for the preservation of the Union, 
met with the most cordial support in Congress and out of it, from 
those who had most strenuously opposed his election ; and he, in 
his turn, depended upon that support, not only as auxiliary, but as 
indispensable, to his administration, in this great crisis. And what 
do we now behold ? The President of the United States, travers- 
ing New-England, under demonstrations of public respect, as cor- 
dial and as united, as he would receive in Pennsylvania or Tennes- 
see ; and the great head of his opponents in this part of the coun- 
try, the illustrious champion of the Constitution in the Senate of 
the United States, welcomed, with equal cordiality and equal una- 
nimity, by men of all names and parties, in the distant West. 

And what is the cause of this wonderful and auspicious change ; 
— auspicious, however transitory its duration may unfortunately 
prove ? That cause is to be sought in a principle so vital, that it 
is almost worth the peril to which the country's best interests have 
been exposed, to see its existence and power made manifest and 
demonstrated. This principle is, that the union of the States, — 
which has been in danger, — must, at. all hazards, be preserved ; 
that union, which, in the same parting language of Washington 
which I have already cited, ' is the main pillar in the edifice of our 
real independence, the support of our tranquillity at home, our 
peace abroad, our safety, our prosperity ; of that very liberty which 
we so highly prize.' Men have forgotten their little feuds, in the 
perils of the Constitution. The afflicted voice of the country, in 
its hour of danger, has charmed down, with a sweet persuasion, the 
angry passions of the day ; and men have felt that they had no 
heart to ask themselves the question, Whether their party were 
triumphant or prostrate ? when the infinitely more momentous ques- 
tion was pressing upon them, Whether the Union was to be pre- 
served or destroyed ? 

In speaking, however, of the preservation of the Union, as the 
great and prevailing principle in our political system, I would not have 
it understood, that I suppose this portion of the country to be more 



356 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

interested in it than any other. The intimation which is sometimes 
made, and the belief which, in some quarters, is avowed that the 
Northern State- bave a peculiar and a selfish interest in the pres- 
ervation of the Union ; — that they derive advantages from it, at 
the uncompensated expense of other portions; — I take to he one 
of the grossest delusions ever propagated by men, deceived them- 
selves, or willing to deceive others. I know, indeed, that the dis- 
solution of the Union would be the source of incalculable injury 
to every pari of it : as it would, in great likelihood, lead to border 
and civil war, and eventually to military despotism. IJutnottous 
would the hitter chalice he first presented. This portion of the 
I nion, — erroneously supposed to have a peculiar interest in its 
preservation, — would be sure to suffer, no doubt, but it would also 
be among the last to suffer, from that deplorable event ; while that 
portion, which is constantly shaking over us the menace of separa- 
tion, would be swept with the besom of destruction, from the 
moment an offended Providence should permit that purpose to 
leach it- ill-starred maturity. 

Far distant he all these inauspicious calculations. It is the nat- 
ural tendency of celebrating the Fourth of July, to strengthen the 
sentiment of attachment to the Union. It carries us hack to other 
<ia\ - oi _\ el greater peril to our beloved country, when a -till -tronger 
bond of feeling and action united the hearts of her children. It 
recalls to in the sacrifices of those who deserted all the walks ol 
private industry, and abandoned the prospects of opening life, to 
engage in the service of their country. It reminds us of the forti- 
tude of those who look upon themselves the perilous responsibility 
of leading the public councils in the paths of revolution : in the 
sure alternative of that success, which was all hut desperate, 

and that scaffold, already menaced as their predestined late, it 
the) failed. It ealls up, as it were, from the beds of -loiy and 
peace where they lie — from the heights of Charlestown to the 
southern plain-. — the vast and venerable congregation ol' those 
who hied in the sacred cause. The) gather in saddened majest) 
around u-. and adjure us, by their returning agonies and reopening 

wound-, not to permit our feud- and dissensions to destXO) the 

value of that birthright, which they purchased with their precious 

I'lVe.. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 357 

There seems to me a peculiar interest attached to the present 
anniversary celebration. It is just a half century, since the close of 
the revolutionary war. It is the jubilee of the restoration of peace 
between the United States and Great Britain. It has been some- 
times objected to these anniversary celebrations, and to the natural 
tendency of the train of remark, in the addresses which they call 
forth, that they tend to keep up a hostile feeling toward the coun- 
try from which we are descended, and with which we are at peace. 
Without denying that this celebration may, like all other human 
things, have been abused in injudicious hands, for such a purpose, 
I cannot, nevertheless, admit that, either as philanthropists or citi- 
zens of the world, we are required to renounce any of the sources 
of an honest national pride. A revolution like ours is a most mo- 
mentous event in human affairs. History does not furnish its par- 
allel. Characters like those of our fathers, — services, sacrifices, 
and sufferings like theirs, form a sacred legacy, transmitted to our 
veneration, to be cherished, to be preserved unimpaired, and to be 
handed down to after ages. Could we consent, on any occasion, 
to deprive them of their just meed of praise, we should prove our- 
selves degenerate children ; and we should be guilty, as a people, 
of a sort of public and collective self-denial, unheard of among 
nations, whose annals contain any thing of which their citizens 
have reason to be proud. Our brethren in Great Britain teach us 
no such lesson. In the zeal with which they nourish the boast of 
a brave ancestry, by the proud recollections of their history, they 
have, — so to speak, — consecrated their gallant and accomplished 
neighbors, the French, — (from whom they, also, are originally, in 
part descended), — as a sort of natural enemy, an object of heredi- 
tary hostile feeling, in peace and in war. That it could be thought 
ungenerous or unchristian to commemorate the exploits of the 
Wellingtons, the Nelsons, or the Marlboroughs, I believe is an 
idea that never entered into the head of an English statesman or 
patriot. 

But, at the same time, 1 admit it to be not so much the duty as 
the privilege, of an American citizen, to acquit this obligation to 
the memory of his fathers, with discretion and generosity. It is 
true, that tli3 greatest incident of our history. — that which lies at 
the foundation of our most important and most cherished national 



358 I \ KRETT'S ORATIONS. 

traditions. — is the revolutionary war. But it is not the less true, 
that there are many ties, which ought to hind our feelings to the 
land of our fathers. It is characteristic of a magnanimous people, 
to do justice to the merits of ever) other nation; especially of a 
nation with whom we have been al variance and are now in amity; 
and most especiall) of a nation of common blood. Where are 
the graves of our fathers ? In England. The school of the free 
principles, in which, as the last great lesson, the doctrine of our 
independence, v. as learned, — w here did it subsist : In the hereditary 
love of liberty of the Anglo-Saxon race. The greal name- which, 
— before America began to exist for civilization and humanity. — 
immortalized the language which we speak, and made our mother 
tongue a heart-stirring dialect, which a man is proud to take on 
his lip-, whithersoever, on the lace of the earth, he may wander, 
are English. If it be, in the language of Cow per. 

praise enough 
To till the ambition of a private man. 
That Chatham's language is liis mother tongue, 
And Wolfe's great name compatriot with his own, 

let it not be beneath the pride nor beyond the gratitude of an Amer- 
ican to remember, that Wolfe fell on the soil of this country, with 
some of the best and bravest of New-England by his side ; and 
that it was among the lasl of the thrilling exclamations, with which 
Chatham shook the House of Lords: — ' Were I an American, as 
I am an Englishman, I never would lay down my arms; never, 
never, never '.' 

There w ere. indeed, great and glorious achiet ements in America, 
before the Revolution, in which the colonies and the mother coun- 
try were intimately and honorably associated. There lived brave 
men before the Agamemnons of seventy-six ; and. thanks to the 
recording pen of history, their name- are not and never shall be 
forgotten. Nothing but the noon-tide splendor of the revolution- 
ary period could have sufficed to cast into comparative forgetful- 
ni ss the heroes and the achievements of the old French war. and 
of that which preceded it in I'll. If we wished an effective 
admonition of the unreasonableness of permitting the events of the 
Revolution to engender a feeling of permanent hostility in our 
mind-, toward the land of our father-, we might find it in the lad. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 359 

that the war of independence was preceded, by only twenty years, 
by that mighty conflict of the Seven Years' war, in which the 
best blood of England and the colonies was shed beneath their 
united banners, displayed on the American soil, and in a cause 
which all the colonies, and especially those of New-England, had 
greatly at heart. And this observation suggests the topic to 
which I beg leave to call your attention, for the residue of the 
hour. 

It will not be expected of me, on this happy occasion, — (which 
seems more appropriately to be devoted to the effusion of kind and 
patriotic feeling, than to labored discussion, — to engage in a regu- 
lar essay) ; — particularly as other urgent engagements have left me 
but a very brief period of preparation, for my appearance before 
you. I shall aim only, out of the vast storehouse of the revolu- 
tionary theme, to select one or two topics, less frequently treated 
than some others, but not inappropriate to the day. Among these, 
I think we may safely place the civil and military education 
which the country had received, in the earlier fortunes of the 
colonies ; the great prajjaratio libertatis, which had fitted out our 
fathers to reap the harvest of independence on bloody fields, and 
to secure and establish it, by those wise institutions, in which the 
only safe enjoyment of freedom resides. 

This subject, in its full extent, would be greatly too comprehen- 
sive for the present occasion, and the circumstances under which 
I have the honor to address you. I shall confine myself chiefly to 
the Seven Years' war, as connected with the war of the Revo- 
lution ; — a subject which has not, perhaps, received all the atten- 
tion which it merits. The influence on the revolutionary struggle 
of the long civil contest which had been kept up with the Crown, 
and the effect of this contest in awakening the minds of men in 
the colonies, and forming them to the intelligent and skilful defence 
of their rights, have been often enough set forth. But the peculiar 
and extraordinary concurrence of facts, in the military history of the 
colonies ; the manner in which the moving causes of the Revolu- 
tion are interwoven with the great incidents of the previous wars ; 
deserve a particular development. If I mistake not, they disclose 
a systematic connexion of events, which, for harmony, interest, and 
grandeur, will not readily be matched with a parallel in civil his- 
tory. 



3G0 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

When America was approached by the Europeans, it was in 
the occupancj of the Indian tribes; an unhappy race of beings, 
not able, as the evenl has proved, to stand before the advance of 
civilization; — feeble, on the whole compared with the colonists, 
when armed with the weapons and arts of Europe; but ve1 capa- 
ble ol carrying on a most harassing and destructive warfare, for 
several generations-; particularly after having learned the use of 
fire-arms, and provided them elves with steel tomahawks and scalp- 
ing-knives from the French and English colonists. Between the 
two latter, the continent was almosl equallj divided. From Nova 
Scotia to Florida, the English possessed the sea-coast. From the 
Si Lawrence to. the Mississippi, the French had established them- 
selves in the interior. The Indian tribes, who occupied the whole 
line of the frontier, and the intermediate space between the settle- 
ments, were alternately stimulated by the two parties, againsl each 
other: hut more extensively ;w\(\ effectively, along the greater pari 
• 'I the line, by the French againsl the English, than by the Eng- 
lish againsl the French. With every war in Europe, between 
England and France, the frontier was in Barnes, from the Savannah 
io the St Croix : and down to so late a period did this state of 
things last, that I have noticed, within eighteen months, the death 
ol an aged person, who was tomahawked by the Canadian savages, 
on their last incursion to the banks of the Connecticut river, as low 
down as .Northampton. There were periods, at which the expul- 
sion of the English from the continent seemed inevitable : — and at 
other times, the French empire in America appeared equally inse- 
cure. Bui it was plain, that no thought of independence could 
t itself, and no plan of throwing off the colonial yoke could 
prosper, while a hostile power of French and Canadian sava 
exasperated b) the injuries inflicted and retaliated for a bundled 
, was encamped along the frontier. On the contrary, the 
habit, so Ion- kept up. ol' acting in concert w ith the mother coun- 
try againsl their French and savage neighbors, was one of the 
strongesl tie- of interesl which bound the colonies to the Crown. 

\t length, in the year L 754, the conflicting claims of the two 
Crow ns to the jurisdiction of various portion, of the Indian territo- 

r\ . hi longing, perhaps, by no very good title to either of them, led 

to the commencement of hostilities between the English and the 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 361 

French, in different parts of the colonies. Among the measures 
of strength which were adopted against the common foe, was 
the plan of uniting the colonies in a general confederation, not 
dissimilar to that which was actually formed in the revolution- 
ary war. It is justly remarked by the historians, as a curious 
coincidence of dates and events, that, on the fourth of July, 
1754, General Washington, then a colonel in the provincial 
service, under Virginia, should have been compelled to capitulate 
to the French, at Fort Necessity, and that Benjamin Franklin, as 
one of the commissioners assembled at Albany, should have put 
his name, on the same day, to the abortive plan of the confedera- 
tion ; and that, on the very same day, twenty-two years afterwards, 
General Washington should be found at the head of the armies of 
Independent and United America, and Franklin in the Congress 
at Philadelphia, among the authors and signers of the Declaration. 

It is obvious, that the necessary elements of a Union could not 
subsist in a state of dependence on a foreign government ; and the 
failure of the confederation of 1754 is another proof, that our 
Union is but the form in which our Independence was organized. 
One in their origin, there is little doubt that they will continue so 
in their preservation. The most natural event of a secession of a 
small part of the Union from the other States, would be its re-col- 
onization by Great Britain. It was only the United States which 
were acknowledged to be independent by Great Britain, or declar- 
ed to be independent by themselves. 

Two years after the period last mentioned, namely, in 1756, the 
flames of the war spread from America to Europe, where it burst 
forth, and raged to an extent, and with a violence, scarcely sur- 
passed by the mighty contests of Napoleon. The empress of 
Austria, and Frederic the Great, France and Spain, — not yet hum- 
bled, and united by the family compact in the closest alliance, — and 
above all, England, — then comprehending within her dominions 
the colonies that now form the United States, and at last roused 
and guided by the towering genius and the lion heart of the elder 
Pitt, — plunged, with all their resources, into the conflict. There 
were various subsidiary objects at heart, with the different powers ; 
but the great prize of the contest, between England and France, 
was the possession of America. That prize, by the fortune of war, 
45 



362 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

or rather by that Providence which, in this manner, was preparing 
tin- way for American independence, was adjudged to the arms of 
England. The great work was accomplished, — the decisive blow 
was struck, — when Wolfe fell, in the arms of victory, on the heights 
of Abraham ; furnishing, in his fate, do unapt similitude of the 
British empire in America, which thai victor} had seemed to con- 
summate. As Wolfe died in the moment of triumph, so the power 
of the British on this continent received its death blow in the event 
that destroy ed its rival. 

It is curious to remark, how instantly this effect began to de- 
velop itself. Up to this time, the utmost political energy of the 
colonies, in conjunction with that of the mother country . had been 
required to maintain a foothold on the continent. They were in 
constant apprehension of being >\\c\)i away, by the united strength 
of the French and Indians. Their thoughts had never wandered 
beyond the frontier line, marked as it was, in its whole extent, with 
(ire and blood. But the power of the French, once expelled from 
the country, as it was, with a trifling exception at New Orleans, 
and their long line of strong holds transferred to the British gov- 
ernment, the minds of men immediately moved forward, over the 
illimitable space that seemed opening to them. A political mira- 
cle was wrought; the mountains sunk, the vallies rose, and the 
poitals of the West were burst asunder. The native tribes of the 
forest still roamed the interior, but, in the imaginations of men, 
they derived their chief terror from the alliance with the French. 
The idea did not immediately present itself to the minds of the 
Americans, that they might, in like manner, be armed and stimu- 
lated by the English against the colonies, whenever a movement 
toward independence should require such a check. Hutchinson 
remarks an altered tone in the state papers of Massachusetts, from 
this period, which he ascribes, less distinctly than he might, to the 
same cause, Covernor Bernard, on occasion of the fall ol Que- 
bec, congratulates the General Court on ' the blessings they derive 
from their subjection to Great Britain :' and the Council, in their 
echo to the speech, acknowledge thai it is 'to their relation to 
(lieat Britain, thai the) owe their freedom ;' and the same histo- 
rian traces the rise of a vague idea of independence to the same 

period and the same influence upon the imaginations Oi men. ol 

the removal of the barrier of the French power. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 363 

The subversion of this power required, or was thought to require, 
a new colonial system. Its principles were few and simple. An 
army was to be stationed, and a revenue raised, in America. The 
army was to enforce the collection of the revenue ; the revenue 
was to pay the cost of the army ; and by this army, stationed in 
the colonies and paid by them, the colonies were to be kept down 
and the French kept out. The policy was ingenious and plausi- 
ble ; it wanted but one thing for its successful operation ; but that 
want was fatal. It needed to be put to practice among men who 
would submit to it. It would have done exceedingly well, in the 
new Canadian conquests ; but it was wholly out of place among 
the descendants of the Pilgrims and the Puritans. Up to this 
hour, although the legislative supremacy of England had not been 
contested in general terms, yet the government at home had never 
attempted to enact laws, simply for the collection of revenue. 
They had confined themselves to the indirect operation of the laws 
of trade, (which purported to be for the advantage of all parts of 
the empire, the colonies as well as the mother country), and those 
not rigidly enforced. The reduction of the French possessions 
was the signal, not merely for the infusion of new vigor into the 
administration of the commercial system, but for the assertion of 
the naked right to tax America. 

When a great event is to be brought about, in the order of Prov- 
idence, the first thing which arrests the attention of the student of 
its history in after times, is the appearance of the fitting instru- 
ments for its accomplishment. They come forward, and take their 
places on the great stage of action. They know not themselves, 
for what they are raised up ; but there they are. James Otis 
was then in the prime of manhood, about thirty-seven years of 
age. He was fully persuaded, that the measures adopted by the 
British government were unconstitutional, and he was armed with 
the genius, and learning ; the wit, and eloquence ; the vehemence 
of temper, the loftiness of soul ; the firmness of nerve, the purity 
of purpose, necessary to constitute a great popular leader in diffi- 
cult times. The question was brought before a judicial tribunal, I 
must confess, in a small way, — on the petition of the Custom 
House officers of Salem, for writs of assistance to enforce the acts 
of trade. Otis appeared, as the counsel of the commercial inter- 



36 1 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

est, to oppose the granting of these writs. Large fees were ten- 
dered him; but his language was. • In such a cause, I despise all 
fees.' His associate counsel, Mr Timelier, preceded him in the 
argument of the cause, with moderation and suavity; 'but Otis,' 
in the language of the elder Presidenl Adams, who heard him, 
'was a flame of fire. With a promptitude of classical allusions, a 
depth of research, a rapid summary of historical events and dates, 
a profusion of legal authorities, a prophetic glance of his eye into 
futurity,' (that glorious futurity, which lie lived not, alas, to enjoy), 
'and a deep torrent of impetuous eloquenci . he carried all before 
him. American independence was then and there born. Every 
man of an immense crowded audience appeared to me to go away, 
as I did, ready to take arms against writs of assistance. Then 
and there was the first scene of the first act of opposition to the 
arbitrary claims of Great Britain.'* 

It would be travelling over a beaten road, to pursue the narra- 
tive of the parliamentary contest from this time to L775. My 
object has merely been to point out the curious historical connexion 
between the consolidation and the downfall of the British empire 
in America, consequent upon the successful issue of the Seven 
Years' war. One consequence only maj deserve to be specified, 
of a different character, but springing from the same source, and 
tending to the same vnA. and more decisive of the fate of the \l<>\ - 
olution, than any other merely political circumstance. The evenl 
which wrested her colonial possessions on this continent from 
France, gave to our father- a friend in that power which had hith- 
erto been their most dreaded enemy, and prepared Trance. — by 
the gradual operation of public sentiment and the influence of rea- 
sons of state, — when the accepted time should arrive, to extend to 
tin m a helping hand to aid them in establishing their independency . 
Xi \i to a re-conquesl of her own possessions, or rather vastly more 
efficacious toward humbling Greal Britain, than a re-conquest of 
the colonic- of France, was the greal policy of enabling the whole 
British empire in America, alike the recent acquisitions and the 
ancienl colonies along the coast, (for to this length the policy of 
France extended), to throw off the English yoke. France played, 

■ Tudor'a Life of < >n-. page 61. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 365 

in this respect, on a much grander scale, that game of state, which 
gave Mr Canning so much eclat a few years since, in reference to 
the affairs of Spain. Perceiving Spain to be in the occupation of 
the French army, Mr Canning, with a policy, it must be owned, 
more effective as towards France than friendly toward Spain, 
determined, as he said, to redress the balance of power in the 
Spanish colonies ; and in order to render the acquisition of Spain 
comparatively worthless to France, to use his own language, ' he 
called into being a new world in the West.' Much more justly 
might the Count de Vergennes have boasted, that, England having 
wrested from France her American colonies, he had determined to 
redress the balance of power in the quarter where it was disturbed ; 
to wrest from the victorious arms of England their new acquisitions, 
— to strike their ancient foothold from beneath their feet ; and call into 
being a new world in the West. On the score of generosity, the 
French minister had the advantage, that his blow was one of retal- 
iation, aimed at his enemy, while the British minister struck at a 
power with which he was at peace, through the sides of his ally. 

But all this wonderful conjunction of political causes does not 
sufficiently explain, in a practical way, the phenomenon of the 
Revolution, nor furnish a satisfactory account of the promptitude 
with which the feeble colonies made the decisive appeal to arms 
against the colossal power of England, — the boldness with which 
they plunged into the revolutionary struggle, — and the success with 
which, through a thousand vicissitudes, they conducted it to a hap- 
py close. Fully to comprehend this, we must again cast our eyes 
on the war of 1744, and still more on that of 1756, as forming a 
great school of military conduct and discipline, in which the future 
leaders of the Revolution were trained to the duties of the camp 
and the field. It was here that they became familiarized to the 
idea of great military movements, and accustomed to the direction 
of great military expeditions, conceived in the colonial councils, 
and often carried on, in the first instance, by the unaided colonial 
resources. 

In the extent of their military efforts, the numbers of men enlist- 
ed in the New-England colonies, — the boldness and comprehension 
of the campaigns, — the variety and hardship of the service, and 
the brilliancy of the achievements, I could almost venture to say, 



366 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

that as much was effected in these two wars as in that of the Rev- 
olution. The military efforts of the colonics had, indeed, from the 
first, been remarkable. It was calculated, near the commence- 
in, lit of tlu- lasl century, thai ever) fifth man in Massachusetts, 
capable of bearing arms, had been engaged in the service, at one 
time. The more melancholy calculation was at the same time 
made, that, in the period of thirty years from king Philip's war, 
from live to six thousand of the youth of the colony had perished 
in the wars. In the second year of the war of 1744, the fa- 
mous expedition againsl Louisburg was planned by the Governor 
of Massachusetts, and sanctioned by its General Court. Three 
thousand two hundred of her citizens, with ten armed ships, sailed 
against that place. This force, compared with the population of 
.Massachusetts at that time, was equal to an army of twelve thou- 
sand men with our present numbers ; and the same immense force 
was kept up the following year. Louisburg, by an auspicious 
coincidence, fell on the 17th of June, just thirty years before the 
battle of Bunker-Hill. Colonel Gridley, who pointed the mortar, 
which, on the third trial, threw a shell into the citadel at Louis- 
burg, marked out the lines of the redoubt on Bunker-Hill;* and 
old Colonel Frye, who hastened to join his regiment on Bunker- 
Hill, after the fight had begun, recalling the surrender of Louis- 
burg, at which he had been presenl thirty years before, declared 
that it was an auspicious day for America, and thai he would take 
the risk of it. At the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, between the 
great powers of Europe, this poor little New-England conquest 
was all that Great I Britain had to give, for the restitution of all the 
conquests made by franco in the course of the war. 

But in the war of 1756, the military efforts of the colonies were 
still more surprising, [fit is said, that the) were upheld by the 
resources of the mother country, let it not be forgotten, in making 
the comparison of their exertions in this war, with those in the 
Revolution, that in the latter they had the powerful support of 
France. The Seven Years' war was carried on in America, at the 
Mime time, in the extreme south, againsl the Cherokee Indians, 

* For this, and some other Facts in this Address, I am indebted to < 'olonel Swett's 
interesting and valuable lii-tory of tliu battle of Bnnker-HilL 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 367 

then a formidable enemy, in the western part of Virginia and 
Pennsylvania, at Niagara, on the whole frontier line, from Albany 
to the St Lawrence and Quebec, in the extreme north-eastern 
corner of the country, where Nova Scotia and Cape Breton were 
retaken, in the West Indies and on the Spanish Main. The regi- 
ments of New-England and New-York, in this war, fought on 
lake Ontario and lake George, at Quebec, in Nova Scotia, in Mar- 
tinico, Porto Bello, and at the Havana. From the year 1754 to 
1762, there were raised, by the single province of Massachusetts, 
thirty-five thousand men ; and for three years successively, seven 
thousand men each year. This was in addition to large numbers 
of the sea-faring inhabitants, who enlisted or were impressed into 
the British navy ; and in addition to those who enlisted in the reg- 
ular British army, who amounted, in one year, to near a thousand. 
Napoleon, at the summit of his power, did not carry an equal num- 
ber of the French people into the field. An army of seven thou- 
sand, compared with the population of Massachusetts, in the middle 
of the last century, is considerably greater than an army of one 
million for France, in the time of Napoleon. 

If I were to repeat the names of all the distinguished pupils in 
this great school of war, I should have to run over the list of a 
large proportion of the officers of the revolutionary army. Among 
them were Prescott, Putnam, Stark, Gridley, Pomroy, Gates, 
Montgomery, Mercer, Lee, and, above all, Washington. If I were 
to undertake to recount the heroic adventures, the incredible hard- 
ships, the privations and exposures, that were endured in the frontier 
wilderness, in the warfare with the savage foe, — on the dreary 
scouting parties in mid-winter, — I should unfold a tale of human 
fortitude and human suffering, to which it would make the heart 
bleed to listen. I should speak of the gallant Colonel Williams, 
the founder of the important institution which bears his name, in 
the western part of the Commonwealth, the accomplished, affable, 
and beloved commander, who fell at the head of his regiment, on 
the bloody eighth of September, 1755. Nor would I forget the 
faithful Mohawk chieftain, Hendrick, who fell at his side. I should 
speak of Putnam, tied to a tree by a party of savages who had 
surprised him at the commencement of an action in a subsequent 
campaign, and exposed, in this condition, to the fire of both par- 



368 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

ties ; afterwards bound again to the stake, and the piles kindled 
which were to burn him alive, but, by the interference of an Indian 
warrior, rescued from this imminenl peril, and preserved by Provi- 
dence to be one of the thunderbolts of the Revolution. I should 
speak of Gridlcy, — whom I have already mentioned, — the engi- 
neer at Louisburg, the artillerist at Quebec, where his corps 
dragged up the only two field-pieces which were raised to the 
heights of Abraham, in the momentous assault on that city, and 
who, as 1 have already said, planned the lines of the redoubt on 
[Junker-Hill, with consummate ability. I should speak of Pomroy, 
of Northampton, who, in the former war, wrote to his wife from 
Louisburg, that, ' if it were the will of God, he hoped to see her 
pleasant face again ; but if God, in his holy and sovereign Provi- 
dence, has ordered it otherwise, he hoped to have a glorious meet- 
ing with her in the kingdom of heaven, where there are no wars, 
nor fatiguing marches, nor roaring cannons, nor cracking bomb- 
shells, nor long campaigns, but an eternity to spend in perfect har- 
mony and undisturbed peace ;'* and who did not only live to see 
his wife's pleasant face again, but to slay with his own hands, in 
the year 1755, the commander of the French army, the brave 
Baron Dieskau ; and who, on the 17th of June, 1775, dismounted 
and passed Charlestown Neck, on his way to Bunker-Hill, on foot, 
in the midst of a shower of balls, because he did not think it con- 
scionable to ride General Ward's horse, which he had borrowed, 
through the cross fire of the British ships of war and floating bat- 
teries. I should speak of Rogers, the New Hampshire partisan, 
who, in one of the sharp conflicts in which his corps of rangers 
was continually engaged, was shot through the wrist, and having 
had his queue cut off by one of his men to stop up the wound, 
went on with the fight. 1 should speak of the superhuman endur- 
ance and valor of Stark, a captain in the same corps of rangers, 
throughout the Seven dears' war, — a colonel at Bunker-Hill, — 
and who, by the victory at Bennington, which he planned and 
achieved almost by the unaided resources of his own powerful 
mind and daring spirit, first turned the tide of disaster in the revo- 
lutionary war. I should speak of Frye, who was included as 

* See the Note at the end. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 369 

commander of the Massachusetts forces, in the disastrous capitula- 
tion of Fort William Henry, in 1757, and escaping, stripped and 
mangled, from the tomahawk of the savages, who fell upon them 
the moment they were marched out of the fort, wandered ahout the 
woods several days, naked and starving, but who was one of the 
first to obey the summons that ran through the country, on the 
19th of April, 1775, and who called to mind the 17th of June, 
1745, as he hastened to join his regiment on Bunker-Hill. I should 
speak of Lord Howe, the youthful, gallant, and favorite British 
general. On the eve of the fatal assault on Ticonderoga, in 1758, 
he sent for Stark to sup with him, on his bear-skin in his tent, and 
talk over the prospects of the ensuing day. He fell the next morn- 
ing, at the head of his advancing column, equally lamented by 
Britons and Americans. The General Court of Massachusetts 
erected a monument to his memory, in Westminster Abbey ; and 
Stark, who never spoke of him without emotion, used to rejoice, 
since he was to fall, that he fell before his distinguished talents 
could be employed against America. Above all, 1 should speak 
of Washington, the youthful Virginian colonel, as modest as brave, 
who seemed to bear a charmed life amidst the bullets of the French 
and Indians at Braddock's defeat, and who was shielded, on that 
most bloody day, by the arm of Providence, to become the earthly 
saviour of his country. 

Such were some of the incidents which connect the Seven Years' 
war with that of the Revolution. Such was the school in which, 
upon the then unexplored banks of the Ohio, by the roaring waters 
of Niagara, and in the pathless wilderness of the North-Western 
frontier, the men of 1776 were trained, in the strictest school of 
British military discipline and conduct. And if there were wanted 
one instance more signal than all others, of the infatuation which 
at that time swayed the councils of Great Britain, it would be the 
fact, that the British ministry not only attempted to impose their 
unconstitutional laws upon men who had drawn in the whole great 
doctrine of English liberty with their mothers' milk, but who, a 
few years before, had, for eight campaigns, stood side by side 
with the veterans of the British army ; who had marched beneath 
the wings of the British eagle, and shared the prey of the British 
lion, from Louisiana to Quebec. 
46 



370 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

At length the Revolution, with all this grand civil and military 
preparation, came on ; and oh, that I could paint out in worthy 
colors, the magnificent picture! Such a subject as it presents, 
considered as the winding up of a great drama, of which the 
opening scene begins with the landing of our fathers, is nowhere 
else, I firmly believe, to be found in the annals of man. It is a 
great national Epos of real life, — unsurpassed in grandeur and at- 
traction. It comprehends every kind of interest, — politics of the 
most subtile and expansive schools ; great concerns of state and 
humanity, mingled up with personal intrigues ; the passions of min- 
isters, and the ails of cabinets, in strange contrast with the mighty 
developments of Providence, which seem to take in the fate of the 
civilized world for ages. On the one hand, the great sanctuary of 
the British power, the adytum imperii, is heard, as Tacitus says of 
the sanctuary at Jerusalem, to resound with the valediction of the 
departing gods. On the other hand, the fair temple of American 
independence is seen rising, like an exhalation from the soil, 

Not in the sunshine and the smile of heaven, 
But wrapt in whirlwinds, and hegirt with woes. 

The incidents, the characters, are worthy of the drama. What 
names, what men ! Chatham, Burke, Fox, Franklin, the Adamses, 
Washington, Jefferson, and all the chivalry and all the diplomacy 
of Europe and America. The voice of generous disaffection 
sounds beneath the arches of St Stephen's ; and the hall of Con- 
gress rings with an eloquence like that, which 

Shook the arsenal, and fnlmined over Greece, 
To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne. 

Then contemplate the romantic groups that crowd the military 
scene; all the races of men, and all the degrees of civilization, 
brought upon the stage at once. The English veteran, the plaid- 
ed Highlander, the hireling peasantry of Hesse-Cassel and Anspach, 
the gallant chevaliers of Poland, the well-appointed legions of 
France, led by her polished noblesse, the hardy American yeoman, 
his leather apron not always thrown aside, the mountain rilleinan, 
the painted savage. At one moment, we hear the mighty arma- 
da* of Europe thundering in the Antilles. Anon we behold the 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 371 

blue-eyed Brunswickers, whose banners told, in their tattered 
sheets, of the victory of Minden, threading the wilderness between 
the St Lawrence and Albany, under an accomplished British gen- 
tleman, and capitulating to the American forces, commanded by a 
naturalized Virginian, who had been present at the capture of Mar- 
tinico, and was shot through the body at Braddock's defeat. While 
the grand drama is closed at Yorktown, with the storm of the Brit- 
ish lines, by the emulous columns of the French and American 
army ; the Americans, led by the gallant scion of the oldest French 
nobility, the heroic Lafayette ; a young New York lawyer, the 
gallant and lamented Hamilton, commanding the advanced guard. 
Nor let us turn from the picture, without shedding a tear over 
the ashes of the devoted men who laid down their lives in the 
cause, from Lexington and Concord to the farthest sands of the 
South. Warren was the first conspicuous victim. If ever a man 
went to an anticipated and certain death, in obedience to the call 
of duty, he was that man. Though he had no military education, 
he knew, from the first, that to hold Bunker-Hill, in the state of 
the American army, was impracticable. He was against fortifying 
it, but overruled in that, he resolved to assist in its defence. His 
associate, in the provincial Congress, Mr Gerry, besought him not 
to risk his life, for that its loss was inevitable. Warren thought it 
might be so, but replied, — that he dwelt within the sound of the 
cannon, and that he should die beneath his roof, if he remained at 
home, while his countrymen were shedding their blood for him. Mr 
Geny repeated, that if he went to the hill, he would surely be killed ; 
and Warren's rejoinder was, — ' Dulce et decorum est pro patria mo- 
roV Montgomery moved to the assault of Quebec in the depth of a 
Canadian winter, at the end of December, under a violent snow- 
storm. One gun only was fired from the batteries, but that proved 
fatal to the gallant commander and his aids, who fell where he had 
fought by the side of Wolfe, sixteen years before. Mercer passed 
through the Seven Years' war with Washington. On one occa- 
sion in that war, he wandered through the wilderness, wounded 
and faint with the loss of blood, for one hundred miles, subsisting 
on a rattle-snake which he killed by the way. He was pierced 
seven times through the body with a bayonet, at Princeton. Scam- 
mel, severely wounded at Saratoga, fell on the eve of the glorious 



372 KVKKKTT'S ORATIONS. 

success at York tow n : and Laurens, the youthful prodigy of valor 
and conduct, the last lamented victim of the war, paid the forfeit 
of liis hrilliant prospects after those of the country were secured. 

These were all men who have gained a separate renown ; who 
have secured a place for their nanus in the annals of liberty. But 
lei us QOt, while we pay a well-deserved tribute to their memory, 
forgel the thousand gallant hearts which poured out their life-blood 
in the undistinguished ranks ; who followed the call of duty up to 
the cannon's mouth ; who could not promise themselves the meed 
of fame, and, Heaven knows, could have been prompted by no 
hope of monej ; the thousands who pined in loathsome prison- 
ships, or languished with the diseases of the camp; and. returning 
from their country's service with broken fortunes and ruined con- 
stitutions, sunk into an early grave. 

' How sleep the brave, who sink to rest, 
With all their country's wishes blest 
When spring, with dewy lingers cold, 
Returns to deck their hallowed mould, 
She there shall dress a sweeter sod 
Than fancj 's foot have ever trod. 
There honor comes, a pilgrim gray, 
To bless the turf that wraps their clay ; — 
\ii.l freedom -hall aw bile repair, 
To dwell a weeping lion nil there.' 

Still less let us forget, on this auspicious anniversary, the vener- 
able survivors of the eventful contest. Let us rejoice, that so ma- 
ny of them are spared to enjoy the fruits of their efforts and sacrifices. 
Let us behold, in their gray locks and honorable -ear-, the strongest 
incentives to the discharge of every duty of the citizen and patriot : 
and. above all, let us listen to the strong appeal which the whole 
army of the Revolution makes to us, through these its aged survi- 
ving members, to -how our gratitude to those who fell, by smooth- 
ing the pathway to the grave of their brethren, whom years and 
the earl) hard-hips of the service yel -pair for a shorl time among 
us. 

Bui it is time to turn from all these mingled contemplation-, to 

the practical lesson which it become- us to draw from our reflec- 
tions on tin- greal subject. 

Momentous as the !« i was in it- origin and causi 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 373 

incidents and characters, it derives a still greater interest from its 
results. 

Fifty years have elapsed since the termination of the war, and 
in that half century we have been reaping fruits of the precious 
seed then sown, — most costly and peculiar. One general Consti- 
tution of federal government has been framed ; and connected 
with it, in most harmonious relation, twenty-four constitutions of 
government for the separate States. These, in their respective 
spheres, operating each to its assigned end, — have secured us in all 
the blessings of political independence and well-regulated liberty. 
The industry of the country has been protected and fostered, and 
carried to a wonderful point of skill, — the rights of the country 
have been triumphantly vindicated in a second war, — its bounda- 
ries pushed into the remote wilderness, — its population increased 
five fold, and its wealth augmented in still greater ratio, — avenues 
of communication, by land and by water, stretched across the 
plains and over the mountains, in every direction, — the most aston- 
ishing improvements made in all the arts of life, — and literature 
and science not less successfully cultivated. 

Did time permit me to descend to particulars, I could point out 
five or six principles or institutions, each of the highest importance 
in civil society ; for some of which the best blood of Europe has, 
from time to time, been shed, and mighty revolutions have been 
attempted in vain ; and which have grown up, silently and uncon- 
sciously, in this country in the space of fifty years. I can but run 
over the names of the reforms which, in this connexion, have been 
achieved, or are in progress. The feudal accumulation of property 
in a few hands has been guarded against, and liberty has been 
founded on its only sure basis, equality ; and with this all-impor- 
tant change, a multitude of minor reforms have been introduced 
into our system of law. The great question of the proper mode 
of disposing of crime has been solved, by the establishment of a 
penitentiary system, which combines the ends of penal justice with 
the interests of humanity ; divests imprisonment of its ancient cruel- 
ties, without making it cease to be an object of terror ; — affords 
the best chance for the reform of the convict, and imposes little or 
no burden on the state. A like success seems to be promised, in 
reference to the other great evil of pauperism, a burden of intoler- 



374 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

able weight in every other country. Experiments have pretty sat- 
isfactorily shown, that, by a judicious system carefully administered, 
pauperism may be made to cease to be a school for crime, and, to 
a considerable degree also, cease to be a burden to the public. A 
plan of popular education has been introduced, by which the ele- 
ments of useful knowledge have been carried to every door. Po- 
litical equality has been established on the broadest footing, with 
no other evils than those which are inseparable from humanity, — 
evils infinitely less than those of despotic government. In fine, 
freedom of conscience has been carried to the highest point of prac- 
tical enjoyment, without producing any diminution of the public 
respect due to the offices of religion. 

These, I take to be the real substantial fruits of our free institu- 
tions of government. They are matters each of the highest mo- 
ment. Their importance would well occupy each a separate essay. 
Time only has been left me thus to indicate them. 

With these results of our happily organized liberty, we are start- 
in-, fellow citizens, on the second half century, since the close of 
the revolutionary war. Let us hope that we are to move with a 
still accelerated pace on the path of improvement and happiness, 
of public and private virtue and honor. When we compare what 
our beloved country now is, — or, to go no farther than our own 
State. — when we compare what Massachusetts now is, with what 
it was fifty years ago, what grounds for honest pride and boundless 
gratitude does not the comparison suggest! And if we wished to 
find an example of a community as favored as any on earth with 
a salubrious climate: — a soil possessed of precisely that degree of 
fertility w hich is most likely to create a thrifty husbandry ; — advan- 
tages for all the great branches of industry, commerce, agriculture, 
the fisheries, manufactures, and the mechanic arts ; — free institutions 
of government; — establishments for education, charity, and moral 
improvement ; — a sound public sentiment, — a widely diffused love 
of order. — a glorious tradition of ancestral renown, — a pervading 
moral sense. — and an hereditary respect for religion: if we wished 
to find a land when a man could desire to live, to educate and 

establish his children, to grow old ;\\\(\ to die, — where could we 
look, w here need we wander, beyond the limits of our own ancienl 
and venerable State ? 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 375 

Fellow citizens of Worcester, — words, after all, are vain. Do 
you wish to learn how much you are indebted to those who laid 
the foundation of these your social blessings,— do not listen to me, but 
look around you ; survey the face of the country, — of the immedi- 
ate neighborhood in which you live. Go up to the rising grounds 
that overlook this most beautiful village ; contemplate the scene of 
activity, prosperity, and thrift spread out before you. Pause on 
the feelings of satisfaction with which you dismiss your children in 
the morning to school, or receive them home at evening ; the as- 
sured tranquillity with which you lie down to repose at night, half 
of you, I doubt not, with unbolted doors, beneath the overshadow- 
ing pinions of the public peace. Dwell upon the sacred calm of 
the Sabbath morn, when the repose of man and of nature is awak- 
ened by no sound but that of the village bell, calling you to go up 
and worship God, according to the dictates of your conscience ; 
and reflect that all these blessings were purchased for you by your 
high-souled fathers, at the cost of years of labor, trial, and hard- 
ship ; of banishment from their native land, of persecution and 
bloodshed, of tyranny and war. Think, then, of Greece, and of 
Poland ; of Italy, and Spain ; aye, of France, and of England ; of 
any, and of every country, but your own; and you will know the 
weight of obligation you owe your fathers ; and the reasons of 
gratitude, which should prompt you to celebrate the Fourth of 
Julv. 



NOT E. 



I have though! thai the reader, who is curious in the earlier 
history of our country, would he gratified with the whole of the 
letter of General Pomroy, of which a characteristic sentence is 
quoted in the text. It has never been printed, and is here sub- 
joined from a copy furnished me by my much valued friend, Mr 
George Bancroft, of Northampton. 

From ye Grand Battre 5 mile & haf North From ye City Louisbourg. 

May ye 8, 1745. 
My dear Wife, AJtho ye many Dangers & hazards I have been in since I left 
you, yet I have been through ye goodness of God Preserved, tho much worried 
with ye grate business I have upon my hands. But T go cherefully on with it. I 
have mnch to write, but little time Shall only give some hints Tuesday ye Last 
day of April, ye fleet landed on ye Island of Cape Breton about 5 miles from Lou- 
bbourg. ye French saw our vessels and came out with a company to prevent our 
landing Bui as Pastas ye boats could git on shore ye men were landed. A warm 
ingagement with them: They sone retreated, we followed them, &. drove them in- 
r i < ye woods but few of them able to git into ye city yl day I we killed \t were 
found many taken we lost not one man: We have taken & killed since main more, 
ye number 1 do not know, but nol less than eighty parsons what is since killed. 
The grand Battre is ours: but before we entered it the people were fled out of it, 

and gon over to ye town Bui had stop) up ye Tutchhols of ye cannon General 

Peppril gave me ye Charge & oversight of above twenty smiths in bearing of them 
OUt: Cannon hoals \. Boums hundred of them were tired at us from ye city ^L ye 

Island Fort Grate numbers of Them struck ye Fort: Some in ye parade among 
ye People But none of them hurt £c a< sone as we could git ye cannon clear we 
gave them Fire for Fire & Bombarded them mi ye west side. Louisbourg an ex- 
ceeding Strong bandsom 6v we'll sittiated place with a tine barber it seams impreg- 
nable. But we have ben so succeeded heiiherto \t I do not doubt Hut Providence 
will Deliver it into our hands. 

Sundaj What we have losl of our men 1 do not i ertinl) know . Hut I (ear near 

Ma\ ye 20 men \e arm) in genera] have been in health: h looks as if our cam- 

12 from pane would last long Bui 1 am willing to stay till God's time comes lo 

tins deliver ye <'iiiv Louisbourg into our hands, which do not doubt but 

below will in good time he done: we have -hut them up on ever) Bide and 

writ still are making our works stronger againsl them. 12 pound shot the) 

have tin d in upon them ever) da) ; one ver) large mortar we have with winch we 

play upon them upon there houses often brake among them: there houses are com- 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 377 

pact, which ye bourns must do a grate deal of hirt & distress them in a grate de- 
gree Small mortars we have with which we fire in upon them. I have had my 
health since I landed. 

My dear wife I expect to be longer gon from home then I did when I left it : 
but I desire not to think of returning Till Louisbourg is taken: & I hope God will 
inable you to submit quietly to his will whatever it may be ; and inable you with 
courage & good conduct to go through ye grate business yt is now upon your hands 
& not think your time ill spent in teaching and governing your family according to 
ye word of God. 

My company in general are well: Some few of them are 111, But hope none dan- 
gerous. 

The affairs at home I can order nothing But must wholly leave Hoping yt they 
will be well ordered & taken care of : My kind love to Mr Sweetland my duty to 
Mother Hunt & love to Brothers and sisters all 

My Dear wife If it be the will of God I hope to see your pleasant face again : 
But if God in his Holy and Sovereign Providence has ordered it others wise, I hope 
to have a glorious meeting with you in ye Kingdom of heaven where there is no 
wars nor Fatiguing marches, no roaring cannon nor cracking Bourn shells, nor lono- 
Campains; But an eternity to spend in Perfect harmony and undisturbed peace. 
This is ye hartty Desire & Prayer 
of him y t is your loving 

Husband SETH POMROY. 

To Mrs Mary Pomroy at Northampton in New-England. 



47 



ADDRESS 

DELIVERED BEFORE THE PHI BETA KAPPA SOCIETY IN YALE COL- 
LEGE, NEW-HAVEN, AUGUST "20, 1833, 



Mr President, and Gentlemen, 

It has given me peculiar satisfaction to obey your call, and 
appear before you on this occasion. I take a sincere pleasure, as an 
affectionate and dutiful child of Harvard, and as an humble member 
of the branch of our fraternity there established, in presenting myself 
within the precincts of this ancient and distinguished seminary, for 
the discharge of the agreeable duty which you have assigned me. 
I rejoice in the confidence implied in your invitation, that I know 
neither sect nor party, in the republic of letters ; and that I enter 
your halls with as much assurance of a kind reception, as I would 
enter those of my ow n reven id and ever gracious Alma Mater. This 
confidence does me no more than justice. Ardently and gratefully 
attached to the institution in which I received my education, 1 
could in no wa\ so effectually prove myself its degenerate child, 
as by harboring the slightest feeling of jealousy at the great and 
growing reputation of this its distinguished rival. In no way could 
urely prove myself a tardy scholar of the school in which I 
have been brought up, as by refusing to rejoice in the prosperity 
and usefulness of every sister institution devoted to the same good 
cause; and especially of thi- the most eminent and efficient <>t her 
associates. 

There are recollections of former times, well calculated to forma 
bond of good feeling between our universities. We cannot forget 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 379 

that, in the early days of Harvard, when its existence almost de- 
pended on the precarious contributions of its friends ; — contributions 
not of munificent affluence, but of pious poverty, — not poured into 
the academic coffers in splendid dotations, but spared from the 
scanty means of an infant and destitute country, and presented in 
their primitive form, — a bushel of wheat, a cord of wood, and a string 
of Indian beads, (this last not a little to the annoyance of good 
old President Dunster, who, as the records of the Commissioners 
of the United Colonies tell us, was sorely perplexed, in sifting out 
from the mass of the genuine quahog and periwinkle, bits of blue 
glass and colored stones, feloniously intermixed, without the least 
respect for the purity of the Colony's wampum),* we cannot forget 
that, in that day of small things, the contributions of Connecticut 
and New-Haven, — as the two infant colonies were distinguished, — 
flowed as liberally to the support of Cambridge, as those of Ply- 
mouth and Massachusetts. Still less would I forget that, of the 
three first generations of the fathers of Connecticut, those who 
were educated in America received their education at Cambridge ; 
that the four first Presidents of Yale were graduates of Harvard ; 
and that of all your distinguished men in church and state, for near- 
ly a hundred years, a goodly proportion were fitted for usefulness 
in life within her venerable walls. If the success of the child be 
the joy of the parent, and the honor of the pupil be the crown of 
the master, with what honest satisfaction may not our institutions 
reflect, that they stood to each other in this interesting relation, in 
this early and critical state of the country's growth, when the di- 
rection taken and the character impressed were decisive of inter- 
minable consequences. And while we claim the right of boasting 
of your character and institutions as in some degree the fruit of a 
good old Massachusetts' influence, we hope you will not have 
cause to feel ashamed of the auspices under which, to a certain 
extent, the foundation of those institutions was laid, and their early 
progress encouraged. 

In choosing a topic on which to address you this morning, I 
should feel a greater embarrassment than I do, did I not suppose 
that your thoughts, like my own, would flow naturally into such a 

* Hazard's State Papers, Vol. II, p. 124. 



380 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

channel of reflection as may be presumed at all times to be habitu- 
al and familiar with men of liberal education or patriotic feeling. 
The great utility of occasions like this, and of the addresses they 
elicit, is not to impart stores of information laboriously collected, — 
not to broach new systems, requiring carefully weighed arguments 
for their defence, or a multitude of well-arranged facts for their il- 
lustration. We meet at these literary festivals, to promote kind 
feeling ; to impart new strength to good purposes; to enkindle and 
animate the spirit of improvement in ourselves and others. We 
leave our closets, our offices, and our studies, to meet and salute 
each other in these pleasant paths ; to prevent the diverging walks 
of life from wholly estranging those from each other, who were 
kind friends at its outset ; to pay our homage to the venerated 
fathers, who honor with their presence the return of these academic 
festivals ; and those of us who are no longer young, to make ac- 
quaintance with the ardent and ingenuous, who are following after 
us. The preparation for an occasion like this, is in the heart, not 
in the head ; it is in the attachments formed, and the feelings in- 
spired, in the bright morning of life. Our preparation is in the 
classic atmosphere of the place, in the tranquillity of the academic 
grove, in the unoffending peace of the occasion, in the open coun- 
tenance of long-parted associates joyous at meeting, and in the kind 
and indulgent smile of the favoring throng, which bestows its ani- 
mating attendance on these our humble academic exercises. 

When I look around upon the assembled audience, and reflect, 
from how many different places of abode throughout our country 
the professional part of it is gathered, and in what a variety of pur- 
suits and duties it is there occupied ; and when 1 consider that this 
our literary festival is also honored with the presence of many from 
every other class of the community, all of whom have yet a common 
interesl in one subject at least, I feel as if the topic on which I am 
to ask your attention, were imperatively suggested tome. It is the 
nature and efficacy of education, as the great human instrument of 
improving the condition of man. 

Education has been, at some former periods, exclusively, and 
more or less, at all former periods, the training of a learned class; 
the mode in which men of letters or the members of the profes- 
sions acquired that lore, which enabled them to insulate themselves 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 381 

from the community, and gave them the monopoly of rendering 
the services in church and state, which the wants or imaginations 
of men made necessary, and of the honors and rewards, which, by 
the political constitution of society, attached to their discharge. 

I admit, that there was something generous and liberal in educa- 
tion ; something popular, and, if I may so express it, republican, 
in the educated class, — even at the darkest period. Learning, 
even in its most futile and scholastic forms, was still an affair of the 
mind. It was not like hereditary rank, mere physical accident : 
it was not, like military power, mere physical force. It gave an 
intellectual influence, derived from intellectual superiority ; and it 
enabled some minds, even in the darkest ages of European history, 
to rise from obscurity and poverty, to be the lights and guides 
of mankind. Such was Beda, the great luminary of a dark period, 
a poor and studious monk, who, without birth or fortune, became 
the great teacher of science and letters to the age in which he lived. 
Such, still more eminently, was his illustrious pupil Alcuin, who, 
by the simple force of mental energy, employed in intellectual pur- 
suits, raised himself from the cloister, to be the teacher, companion, 
and friend of Charlemagne ; and to whom it has been said, that 
France is indebted, for all the polite literature of his own and the 
succeeding ages.* Such, at a later period, was another poor monk, 
Roger Bacon, the precursor, and for the state of the times in which 
he lived, scarcely the inferior of his namesake, the immortal Chan- 
cellor. 

But a few brilliant exceptions do not affect the general charac- 
ter of the education of former ages. It was a thing apart from 
the condition, the calling the service, and the participation of the 
great mass of men. It was the training of a privileged class ; and 
was far too exclusively the instrument by which one of the favored 
orders of society was enabled to exercise a tyrannical and exclusive 
control over the millions which lay wrapt in ignorance and super- 

* ' Ei quicquid politioris literaturae isto et sequentibus saeculis Gallia ostentat to- 
tum acceptum referri debet. Ei Academias Parisiensis, Turonensis, Fuldensis, 
>Sue<?ionen«is, aliaeque plures originetn et incrementa debent, quibus, ille, si non 
praesens praefuit, aut fundarnenta posuit_. salteui doctrina praeluxit, exemplo prativit, 
et benefices a Carolo irupetratis adauxit.' — Cave, Hid. Lit. Sac. VII, An. 780, 
cited in the Life of Alcuin, in the Biozraphia Britannica. 



■i"* KVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

stition. It is the great glory of the age in which we live, that 
learning, once the instrument of this bondage, has become the in- 
strument of reform; that instead of an educated class, we have 
made some good approach to an educated community. That in- 
tellectual culture, which gave to a few the means of maintaining 
an ascendency over the fears and weaknesses of their age, has now 
become the medium of a grand and universal mental equality, and, 
humanly speaking, the great concern of man. It has become the 
school of all the arts, the preparation for all the pursuits, the favor- 
ite occupation of leisure, the ornament of every age, office, voca- 
tion, and sex. In a word, education is now the preparation of a 
very considerable portion of the mass of mankind for the duties, 
which, in the present state of the world, devolve upon them. 

Let us then dwell, for a moment, on what is to be effected by 
education, considered in its ultimate objects and most comprehen- 
sive sense, in which, of course, is included, as the most important 
element, the sound and enlightened influence of deep religious prin- 
ciple, to be cherished and applied, through the institutions existing 
for that sacred purpose. 

A great work is to be done. What is it, in its general outline 
and first principles? 

To answer this question, we must remember, that of the genera- 
tion now on the stage, by which the business of the country, pub- 
lic and private, is carried on, not an individual, speaking in general 
terms, will be in a state of efficient activity, and very few in exist- 
ence, thirty years hence. Not merely those by whom the govern- 
ment is administered and the public service performed, in its 
various civil and military departments, will have passed away; but 
all who are doing the meat, multifarious, never-ending work of so- 
cial life, from the highest teacher of spiritual wisdom and the pro- 
foundest expositor of the law, to the humblest artisan, will have 
ceased to exist. The work is* to go on ; the government is to be 
administered, laws are to be enacted and executed, peace preserved 

or war levied, the will of the | pie to lie expressed hv their suf- 

. and the rasl system of the industrious action of a 
people, in all their thousand occupations, by sea and land, to be 
kept up and extended ; bul those now employed in all this great 
work, arc to Ci a < from it, and others are to lake their plai i 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 383 

Like most of the great phenomena of life, — miracles, if I may 
so say, of daily occurrence, — this vast change, this surcease of a 
whole generation, loses, from its familiarity, almost all power of 
affecting the imagination. The political revolution which subverts 
one crowned family, which prostrates a king to elevate an emperor, 
and cements his throne with the blood of some hundreds, perhaps 
thousands, of the wretched victims of his ambition, is the wonder 
of the age ; the perpetual theme of discourse ; the standing topic 
of admiration. But this great revolution, which prostrates not one 
man nor one family in a single nation ; but every man, in every 
family, throughout the world ; which bids an entire new congrega- 
tion of men to start into existence and action ; which fills with new 
incumbents, not one blood-stained seat of royalty, but every post of 
active duty, and every retreat of private life ; — this new creation 
steals on us siiently and gradually, like all the primordial operations 
of Providence, and must be made the topic of express disquisition, 
before its extent and magnitude are estimated, and the practical 
duties to be deduced from it are understood. 

Such a revolution, however, is impending, — as decisive, as com- 
prehensive, as real, as if, instead of being the gradual work of thirty 
years, it were to be accomplished in a day or an hour : and so much 
the more momentous, for the gradual nature of the process. Were 
the change to be effected at once, were this generation swept off, 
and another brought forward, by one great act of creative energy, 
it would concern us only as speculative philanthropists, what might 
be the character of our successors. Whether we transmitted them 
a heritage honored or impaired ; or whether they succeeded to it 
well trained to preserve and increase, or ready to waste it, would 
import nothing to our interests or feelings. But by the law of our 
nature, the generations of men are most closely interlaced with each 
other, and the decline of one and the accession of the other are 
gradual. One survives, and the other anticipates its activity. While 
in the decline of life, we are permitted to reap, on the one hand, 
a rich reward for all that we have attempted patriotically and hon- 
estly, in public or private, for the good of our fellow men ; on the 
other hand, retribution rarely fails to overtake us, as individuals or 
communities, for the neglect of public duties, or the violation of 
the social trust. 



oH I \ IKETT'S orations: 

We still have judgment here; thai we but teach 
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return 
To plugut' the in\ .iitor : this even-handed justice 
Commends 1 1 1 • - ingredients of the poisoned clialice 
To our own lips. 

By this law of our natures,, the places which we fill in the world 
are to he taken from us : we are to be dispossessed of our share in 
the honors and emoluments of life ; driven from our resorts of busi- 
ness and pleasure ; ousted lioin our tenements; ejected from our 
estates; banished from the soil we called our own, and interdicted 
fire and water in our native land : and those who ward off this des- 
tiny the longest, after holding on a little while with a convulsive 
grasp, making a few more efforts, exposing their thin gra\ hairs in 
another campaign or two, wilj gladly, of their own accord, before 
a great while, claim to be exempts in the service. 

But this revolution connects itself with the constitution of our na- 
ture, and suggests the great principles of education as the dutj and 
calling of man, precisely because it is not the work of violent hands, 
but the law of our heing. It is not an outraged populace, rising 
in their wrath and fury, to throw oil* the burden of centuries of op- 
pression. Nor is it an inundation of strange barbarians, issuing, na- 
tion after nation, from some remote and inexhaustible oj/iciim 
gentium, lashed forward to the work of destruction by the chos< d 
scourges of God; although these are the means by which, when 
corruption has attained a height beyond the reach of ordinal) in- 
fluences, a preparation for a great and radical revolution is made. 
But the revolution of which I speak, and which furnishes the prin- 
ciples of the great duty of education, — all-comprehensive and un- 
sparing as it is, — is to be effected by a gentle race of beings, just 
Stepping over the threshold of childhood, man}- of them hardly 
crepl into existence. The} are to be found within the limits of 
our own country, <>l our own community, beneath our own roofs, 
clinging about our neck-. Father, he whom you folded in your 
arms, and carried in your bosom; whom, with unutterable anxiety, 

you watched through the perilous years of childhood, w horn you 

have brought down to college, this very commencement, and are 
dismissing from beneath your paternal guard, with tearful eyes and 
an aching heart : it is he, who is destined, (if your anient prayers 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 385 

are heard), to outthunder you at the forum and in the Senate House ! 
Fond mother, the future rival of your not yet fading charms, the 
matre pulcra jilia pulcrior, is the rose bud, which is beginning to 
open and blush by your side ! Destined to supersede us in all we 
hold dear, they are the objects of our tenderest cares. Soon to 
outnumber us, we spare no pains to protect and rear them ; and 
the strongest instinct of our hearts urges us, by every device and 
appliance, to bring forward those who are to fill our places, possess 
our fortunes, wear our honors, snatch the laurel from our heads, 
the words from our lips, the truncheon of command from our hands, 
and at last gently crowd us, worn out and useless, from the scene. 
I have dwelt on this connexion of nature and affection between 
the generations of men, because it is the foundation of the high 
philosophy of education. It places the duty of imparting it upon 
the broad eternal basis of natural love. It is manifest, that in the 
provident constitution of an intellectual order of beings, the trust 
of preparing each generation of which it was to consist, for the per- 
formance of its part on the great stage of life, was all-important, 
all-essential ; too vitally so to be put in charge with any but the 
most intimate principles of our being. It has accordingly been in- 
terwoven with the strongest and purest passions of the heart. Ma- 
ternal fondness ; a father's thoughtful care ; the unreasoning instincts 
of the family circle ; the partialities, the prejudices of blood, — are 
all made to operate as efficient principles, by which the risen gene- 
ration is urged to take care of its successor : and when the subject 
is pursued to its last analysis, we find that education in its most 
comprehensive form, — the general training and preparation of our 
successors, — ns the great errand which we have to execute in the 
world. We either assume it as our primary business, or depute it 
to others, because we think they will better perform it, while we 
are engaged in occupations subsidiary to this. Much of the prac- 
tical and professional part we direct ourselves. We come back to 
it as a relaxation or a solace. We labor to provide the means of 
supplying it to those we love. We retrench in our pleasures, that 
we may abound in this duty. It animates our toils, dignifies our 
selfishness, makes our parsimony generous, furnishes the theme for 
the efforts of the greatest minds ; and directly or indirectly fills up 
our lives. 

48 



386 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

In a word, then, we have before us, as the work to be done by 
this generation, to train up that which is to succeed us. 

This is a work of boundless compass, difficulty, and interest. 
Considered as brethren of the human family, it looks, of course, 
to the education of all mankind. If we (online ourselves to our 
duty, as American citizens, the task is momentous, almost beyond 
the power of description. Though the view which 1 would at this 
time take of the subject does not confine itself to the fortunes of a 
single nation, I will dwell upon it for a moment, exclusively in re- 
lation to this country. I will suppose that our Union is to remain 
unbroken for another generation ; a supposition which, I trust, 1 
may safely make; and if this should he the case, it is no violent 
presumption to suppose, that in all respects the countrv will con- 
tinue to advance, with a rapidity equal to that which has marked 
its progress for the last thirty years. On this supposition, the close 
of another generation will see our population swelled to above 
thirty millions; all our public establishments increased in the same 
ratio ; four or five new States added to the Union ; towns and vil- 
lages scattered over regions now lying in the unbroken solitude of 
nature ; roads cut across pathless mountains ; rivers, now unex- 
plored, alive with steamboats; and all those parts of the countrv. 
which at this time are partially settled, crowded with a much denser 
population, with all its attendant structures, establishments, and 
institutions. In other words, besides replacing the present num- 
bers, a new nation, more than fifteen millions strong, will exist 
within the United States. The wealth of the country will increase 
still more rapidly ; and all the springs of social life which capital 
moves, w ill. of course, increase in power ; and a much more intense 
condition of existence will be the result. 

It i> for this state of things, that the present generation is to ed- 
ucate and train its successors ; and on the care and skill with which 
their education is conducted, on the liberality, magnanimity, and 
single-heartedness with which we go about this greal work. — each 
in hi- proper sphere, and according to his opportunities and Mira- 
tion. — will, of course, depend the honor and success with which 
those w ho come after us will perform their parts on the greal stage 

of life. 

This reflection of itself, would produce a deep impression of the 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 387 

importance of the great work of education to be performed by the 
present generation of men. But we must farther take into consid- 
eration, in order to the perfect understanding of the subject, the 
quality of that principle which is to receive, and of that which is 
to impart, the education ; that is, of the mind of this age acting 
upon the mind of the next ; both natures indefinitely expansive, 
in their capacities of action and apprehension ; — natures, whose 
powers have never been defined ; whose depths have never been 
sounded ; whose orbit can be measured alone by that superior in- 
telligence which has assigned its limits, if limits it have. When 
we consider this, we gain a vastly extended and elevated notion of 
the duty which is to be performed. It is nothing less than to put 
in action the entire mental power of the present day, in its utmost 
stretch, consistent with happiness and virtue, and so as to develop 
and form the utmost amount of capacity, intelligence, and useful- 
ness, of intellectual and moral power and happiness, in that which 
is to follow. We are not merely to transmit the world as we re- 
ceive it ; to teach, in a stationary repetition, the arts which we 
have received ; as the dove builds this year just such a nest as was 
built by the dove that went out from the ark, when the waters had 
abated ; but we are to apply the innumerable discoveries, inven- 
tions, and improvements, which have been successively made in 
the world, — and never more than of late years, — and combine, and 
elaborate them into one grand system of increased instrumentality, 
condensed energy, invigorated agency, and quickened vitality, in 
forming and bringing forward our successors. 

These considerations naturally suggest the inquiry, — how much 
can be done, by a proper exertion of our powers and capacities, to 
improve the condition of our successors ? Is there reason to hope, 
that any great advances can be made ; that any considerable stride 
can be taken, by the moral and intellectual agency of this age, as 
exerted in influencing the character of the next ? 

I know of no way to deal practically with this great problem, 
but to ask more particularly, what is effected, in the ordinary 
course of intellectual action and reaction ? What is the average 
amount of the phenomena of education, in their final result, which 
the inspection of society presents to us ? How much is effected 
so frequently and certainly as to authorize a safe inference, as what 



388 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

may be done, in the ordinary progress of the mind, and conjectures 
as to its possible strides, bounds, and flights? 

We can make this inquiry on no other assumed basis, but that 
of the natural average equality of all men, as rational and improv- 
able beings. I do not mean that all men are created, with a phys- 
ical and intellectual constitution capable of attaining, with the same 
opportunities, the same degree of improvement. I cannot assert 
that, nor would 1 willingly undertake to disprove it. I leave it 
aside ; and suppose that, on an average, men are born with equal 
capacities. What then do we behold, as regards the difference 
resulting from education and training? Let us take examples, in 
the two extremes. On the one hand, we have the New Zealand 
savage ; but little better in appearance, than the ourang outang, 
his fellow-tenant of the woods, which afford much the same shelter 
for both ; almost destitute of arts, except that of horribly disfigur- 
ing the features, by the painful and disgusting process of tattooing, 
and that of preparing a rude war club, with which he destroys his 
fellow savage of the neighboring tribe, his natural enemy while he 
lives, his food, if he can conquer or kidnap him; laying up no 
store of provision, but one, which 1 scarce dare describe, — which 
consists in plunging a stick into the water, where it is soon eaten 
to honey comb by the worms, which abound in tropical climates, 
and which, then taken out, furnishes, in these worms, a supply of 
their most favorite food to these forlorn children of nature. Such 
is this creature from youth to age, from father to son, — a savage, 
a cannibal, a brute; — a human being, a fellow-man, a rational and 
immortal soul; carrying about under that squalid loathsome exte- 
rior, hidden under those brutal manners, and vices disgusting at 
once and abominable, a portion of the intellectual principle, which 
likens man to his Maker. This is one specimen of humanity ; how 
shall we bring another into immediate contrast with it? How bet- 
ter than h\ contemplating what maybe witnessed on hoard the 
vessel, w hich carries the enlightened European or American to these 
dark and dreary corners of the earth ? You there heboid a majes- 
tic vessel, bounding over the billows, from the other side of the 
globe ; easily fashioned to float, in safety, over the bottomles 
to spread out her broad wings, and catch the midnight breeze, 
guided by a single drowsy sailor at the helm, with two or three 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 389 

companions reclining listlessly on the deck, gazing into the depths 
of the starry heavens. The commander of this vessel, not sur- 
passing thousands of his brethren in intelligence and skill, knows 
how, by pointing his glass at the heavens, and taking an observa- 
tion of the stars, and turning over the leaves of his ' Practical Nav- 
igator,' and making a few figures on his slate, to tell the spot which 
his vessel has reached on the trackless sea : — and he can also tell 
it by means of a steel spring and a few brass wheels, put together 
in the shape of a chronometer. The glass with which he brings 
the heavens down to the earth, and by which he measures the 
twenty-one thousand six hundredth part of their circuit, is made of 
a quantity of flint, sand, and alkali, — coarse opaque substances, 
which he has melted together into the beautiful medium which ex- 
cludes the air and the rain, and admits the light, — by means of 
which he can count the orders of animated nature in a dew-drop, 
and measure the depth of the vallies in the moon. He has, run- 
ning up and down his mainmast, an iron chain, fabricated at home, 
by a wonderful succession of mechanical contrivances, out of a rock 
brought from deep caverns in the earth, and which has the power 
of conducting the lightning harmlessly down the sides of the vessel, 
into the deep. He does not creep timidly along, from headland to 
headland, nor guide his course across a narrow sea, by the north 
star ; but he launches bravely on the pathless and bottomless deep. 
and carries about with him in a box, a faithful little pilot, who 
watches when the eye of man droops with fatigue, a small and pa- 
tient steersman, whom darkness does not blind, nor the storm drive 
from his post, and who points from the other side of the globe, — 
through the convex earth, — to the steady pole. If he falls in with 
a pirate, he does not wait to repel him, hand to hand ; but he puts 
into a mighty engine a handful of dark powder, into which he has 
condensed an immense quantity of elastic air, and which, when it 
is touched by a spark of fire, will instantly expand into its original 
volume, and drive an artificial thunderbolt before it, against the 
distant enemy. When he meets another similar vessel on the sea, 
homeward bound from a like excursion to his own, he makes a few 
black marks on a piece of paper, and sends it home, a distance of ten 
thousand miles ; and thereby speaks to his employer, to his family, 
and his friends, as distinctly and significantly as if they were seat- 



390 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

ed by his side. At the cost of half the labor with which the sav- 
age procures himself the skin of a wild beast, to cover his naked- 
ness, this child of civilized life has provided himself with the most 
substantial, curious, and convenient clothing, — textures and tissues 
of wool, cotton, linen, and silk, — the contributions of the four quar- 
ters of the globe, and of every kingdom of nature. To fill a vacant 
hour, or dispel a gathering cloud from his spirits, he has curious in- 
struments of musiCj which speak another language of new and 
strange significance to his heart, — which make his veins thrill and 
his eyes overflow with tears, without the utterance of a word, — 
and with one sweet succession of harmonious sounds, send his heart 
back, over the waste of waters, to the distant home where his wife 
and his children are gathered around the fireside, trembling at the 
thought that the storm, which beats upon the windows, may per- 
haps overtake their beloved voyager on the distant seas. And in 
his cabin he has a library of volumes, — the strange production of a 
machine of almost magical powers, — which, as he turns over their 
leaves, enable him to converse with the great and good of every 
clime and age, and which even repeat to him, in audible notes, the 
laws of his God and the promises of his Saviour, and point out to 
him that happy land, which he hopes to reach, when his flag is 
struck , and his sails are furled, and the voyage of life is over. 

The imaginations of those whom I have the honor to address, 
will he able to heighten this contrast, by a hundred traits on either 
side, for which 1 have not time; but even as 1 have presented it, 
will it be deemed extravagant, if I say, that there is a greater dif- 
ference between the educated child of civilized life and the New 
Z<alaiid savage, than between the New Zealand savage and the 
ourang outang? — And vet the New Zealander was born a rational 
being, like the civilized European and American ; and the civilized 
European and American entered life, like the New Zealander, a 
helpless, wailing babe. 

This, then, is the difference made by education : — made by edu- 
cation. I do not mean, that if a school were set up in New Zea- 
land, vou could convert the rising generation of savage children, in 

eighl or ten years, into a civilized, well-educated, orderly society. 

1 will not undertake to saj , what could be done with an individual 

of that race, taken at birth and broughl to a Christian country, and 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 391 

there reared, under the most favorable circumstances ; nor do I 
know into what sort of a being one of our children would grow up, — 
supposing it could survive the experiment, — were it taken from the 
nurse's arms, and put in charge to a tribe of New Zealanders. 
But it is, upon the whole, education, in the most comprehensive 
sense, which makes the vast difference which I have endeavored to 
illustrate, and which actually, in the case of a civilized person, 
transforms his intellect from what it is at birth, into what it becomes 
in the mature, educated, consummate man. 

These reflections teach us what education ordinarily accomplishes. 
They illustrate its power, as measured by its effects. Let us now 
make a single remark on its prodigious efficacy, measured by the 
shortness of the time within which it produces its wonders. When 
we contemplate the vast amount of the arts, useful and mechanical, 
elegant and literary ; — the sciences, pure and mixed, and of the 
knowledge, practical and speculative, belonging to them; — a portion 
of which, — sometimes a very large portion, — is within the com- 
mand of every well-educated person, the wonder we should natu- 
rally feel may be a little abated by the consideration, that this is 
the accumulated product of several thousand years of study, — the 
fruits of which have been recorded, or transmitted by tradition from 
age to age. But when we reflect again upon the subject, we find, 
that though this knowledge has been for four or five thousand years 
in the process of accumulation, and consists of the condensed con- 
tributions of great and gifted minds, or of the mass of average intel- 
lect, transmitted from race to race, since the dawn of letters and 
arts in Phoenicia and Egypt, it is nevertheless mastered by each 
individual, if at all, in the compass of a few years. It is in the 
world, but it is not inherited by any one. Men are born rich, but 
not learned. The La Place of this generation did not come into 
life, with the knowledge possessed and recorded by the Newtons, 
the Keplers, and the Pythagorases of other days. It is doubtful, 
whether, at three years old, he could count much beyond ten; — 
and if at six, he was acquainted with any other cycloidal curves, 
than those generated by the trundling of his hoop, he was a prodi- 
gy indeed. But by the time he was twenty-one, he had mastered 
all the discoveries of all the philosophers who preceded him, and 
was prepared to build upon them the splendid superstructure of his 



39-2 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

own. In like manner, the whole race of men, who thirty years 
hence are to be the active members of society, and some of them 
its guides and leaders, its Mansfields and Burkes, its Ellsworths, 
Mar-halls, and Websters, — the entire educated and intelligent pop- 
ulation, which will have prepared itself with the knowledge requis- 
ite for carrying on the business of life is, at this moment, enacting 
the part of 

the whining school-boy with his satchel 
And shining morning face, creeping like snail 
Unwillingly to school: — 

our future Ciceros are mew ling infants ; and our Arkwrights and 
Fultons, who are hereafter to unfold to our children new properties 
of matter ; — new forces of the elements ; — new applications of the 
mechanical powers, which may change the condition of things, are 
now, under the tuition of a careful nurse, with the safeguard of a 
pair of leading strings, attempting the perilous experiment of putting 
one foot before the other. Yes, the ashes that now moulder in 
yonder grave-yard, the sole remains on earth of what was Whitney, 
— are not more unconscious of the stretch of the mighty mind which 
they once enclosed; — than the infant understandings of those now 
springing into life, who are destined to follow in the luminous track 
of his genius, to new and still more brilliant results, in the service 
of man ! 

W hen we consider, in this way, how much is effected by educa- 
tion, in how short a time, for the individual and the community, 
and thence deduce some not inadequate conception of its prodigious 
efficiency and power, we are led irresistibly to another reflection, 
upon its true nature. We feel that it cannot be so much an act of 
the teacher, as an act of the pupil. It is not, that the master, pos- 
sessing this knowledge, lias poured it out of his own mind into that 
of the learner: — but the learner, by the native power of appre- 
hension, judiciously trained and wisely disciplined, beholds, com- 
prehends, and appropriates what is set before him, in form and or- 
der; and not only SO, but with the first quickeningS of the intellect, 
commences himself the creative and inventive processes. There 
is not the leasl doubt, that the active mind, judiciously trained, in 
reality sometimes invent- for itself, not a little of that which. — 



'EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 393 

being already previously known and recorded, — is regarded as a 
part of the existing stock of knowledge. From this principle also, 
we are led to an easy explanation of those curious appearances of 
simultaneous discoveries in art and science, of which literary history 
records many examples ; — such as the rival pretensions of Newton 
and Leibnitz, — of Arkwright and Hargraves, — of Priestley and 
Lavoisier, — of Bell and Lancaster, — of Young and Champollion, 
which show, that at any given period, especially in a state of so- 
ciety favorable to the rapid diffusion of knowledge, the laws of the 
human mind are so sure and regular, that it is not an uncommon 
thing for different persons, in different countries, to fall into the 
same train of reflection and thought, and to come to results and 
discoveries, which, — injuriously limiting the creative powers of the 
intellect, — we are ready to ascribe to imitation or plagiarism. 

It is indeed true, that one of the great secrets of the power of 
education, in its application to large numbers, is, that it is a mutual 
work. Man has three teachers, — the school-master, — himself — 
his neighbor. The instructions of the two first commence together ; 
and long after the functions of the school-master have been dis- 
charged, the duties of the two last go on together ; and what they 
effect is vastly more important than the work of the teacher, if es- 
timated by the amount of knowledge self-acquired, or caught by 
the collision or sympathy of other minds, compared with that which 
is directly imparted by the school-master, in the morning of life. 
In fact, what we learn at school and in college, is but the founda- 
tion of the great work of self-instruction and mutual instruction, 
with which the real education of life begins, when what is com- 
monly called the education is finished. The daily intercourse of 
cultivated minds, — the emulous exertions of the fellow-votaries of 
knowledge, — controversy, — the inspiring sympathy of a curious 
and intelligent public, are all powerful in putting each individual 
intellect to the stretch of its capacity. A hint, — a proposition, — 
an inquiry, proceeding from one mind, awakens new trains of 
thought in a kindred mind, surveying the subject from other points 
of view, and with other habits and resources of illustration ; — and 
thus truth is constantly multiplied and propagated, by the mutual 
action and reaction of the thousands engaged in its pursuit. Hence 
the phenomena of Periclean, Augustan, and Medicean ages, and 
49 



394 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

golden eras of improvement ; — and hence the education of each 
individual mind, instead of being merely the addition of one to the 
well-instructed and well-informed members of the community, is 
the introduction of another member into the great family of intel- 
lects, each of which is a point not merely bright but radiant, and 
competent to throw off the beams of light and truth in every di- 
rection. Mechanical forces, from the moment they are put in ac- 
tion, by the laws of matter grow fainter and fainter, till they are 
exhausted. With each new application, something of their intens- 
ity is consumed. It can only be kept up by a continued or re- 
peated resort to the source of power. Could Archimedes have 
found his place to stand upon, and a lever with which he could 
heave the earth from its orbit, the utmost he could have effected 
would have been to make it fall a dead weight into the sun. Not 
so the intellectual energy. If wisely exerted, its exercise, instead 
of exhausting, increases its strength ; and not only this, but as it 
moves onward from mind to mind, it awakens each to the same 
sympathetic, self-propagating action. The circle spreads in every 
direction. Diversity of language does not check the progress of 
the great instructer, for he speaks in other tongues, and gathers new 
powers from the response of other schools of civilization. The 
pathless ocean does not impede, it accelerates his progress. Space 
imposes no barrier, time no period to his efforts ; and ages on ages 
after the poor clay, in which the creative intellect was enshrined, 
has mouldered back to its kindred dust, the truths which it has un- 
folded, — moral or intellectual, — are holding on their pathway of 
light and glory, awakening other minds to the same heavenly ca- 
reer. 

But it is more than time to apply these principles to the condi- 
tion of the world as it now exists, and to inquire, what hope there 
is, — in the operation of this mighty engine, — of a great and bene- 
ficial progress in the work of civilization. 

We certainly live in an enlightened age; one in which civiliza- 
tion has reached a high point of advancement and extension, in this 
and several other countries. There are several nations besides our 
own. where the Christian religion, civil government, the usual 
branches of industry, the diffusion of know ledge, useful and orna- 
mental, and of the fine arts, have done and are doing great things 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 395 

for the happiness of man. But when we look a little more nearly, 
it must be confessed, that, with all that has been done in this cause, 
the work which still remains to be accomplished is very great. The 
population of the globe is assumed, in the more moderate estimates, 
to be seven hundred millions. Of these, two hundred and fifty 
millions are set down for America and Europe, and the residue for 
Asia and Africa. Two hundred and fifty millions again are assumed 
to be Christians ; and of the residue three fourths are pagans. 
There is certainly a considerable diversity of condition among the 
various Asiatic and African, — who are also the unchristianized, 
— races, as there is also among the European and American, who 
belong to the family of civilization and Christianity. But, upon 
the whole, it must be admitted, that about two thirds of mankind 
are without the pale of civilization, as we understand it; and of 
these a large majority are pagan savages, or the slaves of the most 
odious and oppressive despotisms. The Chinese and Hindoos, — 
who make up two thirds of this division of mankind, — contain, 
within their vast masses, perhaps the most favorable specimens of 
this portion of the human family ; and if we turn from them to the 
Turks, the Tartars, the Persians, the native races of the interior 
of Africa, the wretched tribes on the coast, or the degraded popu- 
lation of Australia or Polynesia, we shall find but little, (except in 
the recent successful attempts at civilization), on which the eye of 
the philanthropist can rest with satisfaction. Almost all* is dark, 
cheerless, and wretched. 

Nor, when we look into what is called the civilized portion of 
the globe, is the prospect as much improved as we could wish. 
The broad mantle of civilization, like that of charity, covers a great 
deal, which, separately viewed, could claim no title to the name. 
Not to speak of the native tribes of America, or the nomadic races 
of the Russian empire, how vast and perilous is the inequality of 
mental condition among the members of the civilized states of the 
earth. Contemplate the peasantry of the greater part of the north 
of Europe, attached as property to the soil on which they were 
born. The same class in the Austrian dominions, in Spain, in Por- 
tugal, in Italy, — if not held in precisely the same state of political 
disability, — are probably, to a very slight degree, more improved 
in their mental condition. In the middle and western states of 



396 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

Europe, — France, Holland, Germany, and Great Britain, — although 
the laboring population is certainl) in a more elevated and happier 
state than in the countries just named, yet how little opportunity 
for mental improvement do even they possess ! We know that 
the} pass their lives in labors of the mo^t unremitted character, 
from which the) derive nothing hut the means of a most scanty 
support : constantly relapsing into want, at the slightest reverse of 
fortune, or on the occurrence of the first severe casualty. 

Then consider the character of a large portion of the population 
of the great cities of all countries, — London. St Petersburg, Vien- 
na : where the extremes of human condition stand in painful jux- 
taposition ; — and by the side of some specimens of all that adorns 
and exalts humanity, — the glory of our species, — we find the large 
mass of the population profoundly ignorant, and miserably poor, 
and no small part of it sunk to the depths of want and vice. It is 
painful to reflect, in this age of refinement, how near the two op- 
posite ennditions of our nature maybe brought, without the least 
communication of a direct genial influence from one to the other. 
If any thing were necessary, beyond the slightest inspection of ob- 
vious facts, to show the artificial structure of the society in which 
we live, and the need of some great and generous process of reno- 
vation, it would be the reflection, that, if a man wished to explore 
the very abyss of human degradation, — to find how low one could 
get in the scale of nature, without going beneath the human race, 
— if he wished to find every want, every pang, every vice, which 
can unite to convert a human being into a suffering, loathsome 
brute. — he would not have to wander to the cannibal tribes of 
Australia, already described, or to the dens of the bushmen of 
the Cape of Good Hope. He would need only to take a ten 
steps' walk from Westminster Abbey, or strike off for half a quarter 
of a mile, in almost any direction, from the very focus of all that is 
elegant and refined, — the pride and happiness of life, — in London 
or Paris. 

The painful impressions produced by these melancholy truths, 
are increased by the consideration, that in some parts of the n 
of civilization, the cause of the mind has seemed to go backward. 
\\ ho can think of the former condition of the coasts of the .Med- 
iterranean, and not feel a momentary anxiety for the fortunes of 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 397 

the race ? In ancient times, the shores of the Mediterranean, all 
around, were civilized after the type of that day, flourishing and 
happy. In this favored region, the human mind was developed, in 
many of its faculties, to an extent, and with a beauty, never sur- 
passed, and scarcely ever equalled. Greece was the metropolis of 
this great intellectual republic ; and through her letters and her arts 
extended the domain of civilization to Asia Minor and Syria, to 
Egypt and Africa, to Italy and Sicily, and even to Gallia and Ibe- 
ria. What a state of the world it was, when all around this wide 
circuit, whithersoever the traveller directed his steps, he found 
cities filled with the beautiful creations of the architect and the 
sculptor ; marble temples in the grandest dimensions and finest pro- 
portions ; statues, whose miserable and mutilated fragments are the 
models of modern art ! Wheresoever he sojourned, he found the 
schools of philosophy crowded with disciples, and heard the thea- 
tres ringing with the inspirations of the Attic muse, and the forum 
thronged by orators of consummate skill and classic renown. We 
are too apt, in forming our notions of the extent of Grecian civili- 
zation, to confine our thoughts to one or two renowned cities, — to 
Athens alone. But not only all Greece, but all the islands, Sicily 
and Magna Gratia, round all their coasts, the Ionian shore, the 
remote interior of Asia Minor and Syria, almost to the Euphrates, 
the entire course of the Nile up to its cataracts, and Libya far into 
the desert, were filled with populous and cultivated cities. Places, 
whose names can scarcely be traced, but in an index of ancient 
geography, abounded in all the stores of art, and all the resources 
of instruction, in the time of Cicero. He makes one of the chief 
speakers in the Orator say, ' At the present day, all Asia imitates 
Menecles of Alabanda and his brother.' Who was Menecles, and 
where was Alabanda ? Cicero himself studied not only under Phi- 
lo the Athenian, but Milo the Rhoclian, Menippus of Stratonice, 
Dionysius of Magnesia, iEschylus of Cnidus, and Xenocles of 
Adramyttium. These were the masters, — the schools of Cicero ! 
Forgotten names, perished -cities, abodes of art and eloquence, of 
which the memory is scarcely preserved ! 

What then is the hope, that much can be effected in the promo- 
tion of the great object of the improvement of man, by the instru- 
mentality of education, as we have described it ? And here, I am 



{!»- KVKRETT'S ORATIONS. 

willing to own myself an enthusiast, and all I ask is, that men will 
have the courage to follow the light of general principles, and pa- 
tience for great effects to flow from mighty causes. If, after estab- 
lishing the great truths of the prodigious power of the principles, 
h\ which the education of the world is to be achieved, men suffer 
themselves to he perplexed by apparent exceptions ; — and especial- 
ly . if 1 1 icy will insist upon beginning, carrying on, and completing 
themselves even thing which they propose or conceive for human 
improvement, — forgetful that humanity, religion, national character, 
literature, and the influence of the arts, — are great concerns, — 
spreading out oxer a lapse of ages, and infinite in their perfectibil- 
ity : then indeed the experience of one short life can teach nothing 
but despair. 

But if we will do justice to the power of the great principles 
w hich 1 have attempted to develop, that are at work for the educa- 
tion of man. — if w e w ill study the causes which in other times have 
retarded his progress, — which seem in some large portions of the 
globe to doom him even now to hopeless barbarity, — and if we will 
duly reflect, that what seems to be a retrograde step in the march 
of civilization, is sometimes, (and most memorably in the downfall 
of the Roman empire), the peculiar instrumentality with which a 
still more comprehensive work of reform is carried on, we shall have 
ample reason to conceive the brightest hopes for the progress of 
our race; for the introduction within the pale of civilization of its 
benighted regions, and the effective regeneration of all. We have 
now in our possession, three instruments of civilization unknown to 
antiquity, of power separately to work almost any miracle of im- 
provement, and die united force of which is adequate to the achieve- 
ment of any thing not morally and physically impossible. These 
are the art of printing, — a sort of mechanical magic for the diffu- 
sion of knowledge; — free representath e government, — a perpetual 
regulator and equalizer of human condition, the inequalities of 
which are the great scourge of society ; — and lastly a pure and 
spiritual religion, — the deep fountain of generous enthusiasm, — the 
mighty spring of hold and lofty designs, — the great sanctuary of 
moral power. The want of one or all of these, satisfactory ex- 
plains the vicissitudes of the ancienl civilization; and the possession 
ol them all as satisfactorily assures the permanence of that, w hich has 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 399 

been for some centuries, and is now going on, and warrants the 
success of the great work of educating the world. Does any one 
suppose, that if knowledge among the Greeks, instead of being 
confined to the cities, and, in them, to a few professional sophists, 
and rich slave-holders, had pervaded the entire population in that 
and the neighboring countries, as it is made to do in modern times, 
by the press — if, instead of their anomalous, ill-balanced, tumult- 
uary republics and petty military tyrannies, they had been united, 
in a well-digested system of representative government, or even 
constitutional monarchy, — they and the states around them, Persia, 
Macedonia, and Rome ; — and if, to all these principles of political 
stability, they had, instead of their corrupting and degrading super- 
stitions, been blessed with the light of a pure and spiritual faith ; — 
does any one suppose that Greece and Ionia, under circumstances 
like these, would have relapsed into barbarism ? Impossible. The 
Phoenicians invented letters, but what did they do with them ? Ap- 
ply them to the record, the diffusion, transmission, and preservation 
of knowledge ? Unhappily for them, that was the acquisition of a 
far subsequent period. The wonderful invention of alphabetical 
writing, — after all, perhaps, the most wonderful of human inven- 
tions, — was probably applied by its authors to no other purpose, 
than to carve the name of a king on his rude statue, or perhaps to 
record some simple catalogue of titles on the walls of a temple. 
So it was with the Egyptians, whose hieroglyphics have recently 
been discovered to be an alphabetical character; but which were 
far too cumbrous to be employed for an extensive and popular dif- 
fusion of knowledge, and which, with all the wisdom of their in- 
ventors, are not certainly known to have been applied to the com- 
position of books. It was the freer use of this flexible instrument 
of knowledge, which gave to Greece her eminence, — which created 
so many of the objects of her national pride ; and redeemed the 
memory of her distinguished sons from that forgetfulness, which has 
thrown its vast pall over the great and brave men and noble deeds 
of the mighty but unlettered states of antiquity. No one thinks 
that the powerful and prosperous nations which flourished for two 
thousand years, on the Nile and the Euphrates, were destitute of 
heroes, patriots, and statesmen. But, for want of a popular litera- 
ture, their merits and fame did not, at the time, incorporate them- 



400 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

selves with the popular character ; and now, that they are no more, 
their memory lies crushed with their ashes beneath their mausole- 
um-; and pyramids. The mighty cities they built, the seats of 
their power, are as desolate as the cities they wasted. The races 
of men. whom the) ruled and arrayed in battle, bound in an iron 
servitude, — degraded by mean superstitions, — sunk before the first 
invader, — and now the very Languages, on whose breath their 
glorj was wafted from the Atlas to the Indus, are lost and forgot- 
ten, because they were never impressed on the undying page of a 
written literature. 

The more diffusive and popular nature of the Grecian literature 
was evidentlj the cause of the preservation of the national spirit of 
the Greeks, and with it of their political existence. Greece, it is 
true, fell, and with it the civilization of the ancient world. In this, 
it may seem to present us rather an illustration of the inefficiency 
than of the power of the preservative principle of letters. But let 
us bear in mind, in the first place, that greatly as the Greeks ex- 
celled the eastern nations in the diffusion of knowledge, they yet 
fell infinitely below the modern world, furnished as it is. with the 
all-effieacious art of printing. Still more, let us recollect, that if 
Greece, in her fall, affords an example of the insufficiency of the 
ancient civilization, her long, glorious, and never wholly unsuccess- 
ful struggles, and her recent recovery from barbarism, furnish the 
most pleasinj proof, that there is a life-spring of immortality in the 
combined influence of letter-, freedom, and religion. Greece in- 
deed fell. But how did she fall? Did she fall like Babylon ? 
Did she fall ' like Lucifer, never to hope again?' Or did she not 
rather go down, like that brighter luminal'}', of which Lucifer i> hut 
the herald? 

So sinks the day-star in the ocean's l>ed, 

And yel anon repairs In- drooping head, 

Ami tricks lii- beams, and. with uew-spangled ore, 

Flames in the forehead of the morning sky. 

What, hut tin- ever 1 i \ i n l: power of literature anil religion, pre- 

served the light of civilization and the intellectual -tores of the past, 

undiminished in Greece, during the long and dreary ages of the 

decline and downfall of the Roman empire: What preserved 

id pett) islets from sinking, beyond redemp- 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 401 

tion, in the gulf of barbarity, in which Cyrene, and Egypt, and 
Syria, were swallowed up ? It was Christianity and letters, retreat- 
ing to their fastnesses on mountain tops, and in secluded vallies, — 
the heights of Athos, the peaks of Meteora, the caverns of Arca- 
dia, the secluded cells of Patmos. Here, while all else in the 
world seemed swept away, by one general flood of barbarism, civil 
discord, and military oppression, the Greek monks of the dark 
ages preserved and transcribed their Homers, their Platos, and their 
Plutarchs. There never was, strictly speaking, a dark age in Greece. 
Eustathius wrote his admirable commentaries on Homer, in the 
middle of the twelfth century. That surely, if ever, was the mid- 
night of the mind ; but it was clear and serene day in his learned 
cell ; and Italy, proud already of her Dante, her Boccaccio, and 
Petrarch, — her Medicean patronage, and her reviving arts, — did not 
think it beneath her to sit at the feet of the poor fugitives from the 
final downfall of Constantinople. 

What, but the same causes, enforced by the power of the press, 
and by the sympathy with Greece, which pervaded the educated 
community of the modern world, has accomplished the political 
restoration of that country ? Thirteen years ago, it lay under a 
hopeless despotism : its native inhabitants, as such, marked out for 
oppression and plunder, — tolerated in their religion for the sake of 
the exactions ; of which it furnished the occasion, — shut out from 
the hopes and honors of social life, — agriculture, and all the visible 
and tangible means of acquisition, discountenanced, — commerce, 
instead of lifting her honored front, like an ocean queen, as she 
does here, creeping furtively from islet to islet, and concealing her 
precarious gains, — the seas infested with pirates, and the land with 
robbers, — the population exhibiting a strange mixture of the virtues 
of the bandit and the vices of the slave, but possessing, in gener- 
ous transmission from better days, the elements of a free and en- 
lightened community. Such was Greece thirteen years ago, and 
the prospect of throwing off the Turkish yoke, in every respect 
but this last, was as wild and chimerical, as the effort to throw off 
the Cordilleras from this continent. In all respects but one, it 
would have been as reasonable to expect to raise a harvest of grain 
from the barren rock of Hydra, as to found a free and prosperous 
state in this abject Turkish province. But the standard of liberty 
50 



402 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

was raised on the soil of Greece, by the young men who returned 
from the universities of western Europe, and the civilized world 
was electrified al the tidings. It was the birth-place of the arts, — 
the cradle of letters. Reasons of state held hack the governments 
of Europe and of America from an interference in their favor, bul 
intellectual sympathy, religious and moral feeling, and the public 
opinion of the age, rose in their might, and swept all the barriers 
of state logic away. Th< \ were feeble, unarmed, without organi- 
zation, distracted bj feuds; an adamantine wall of neutrality on 
the west; an incensed barbarian empire, — horde after horde, — 
from the confines of Anatolia to the cataracts of the Nile, — pour- 
ing down upon them on the cast. Their armies and their navies 
were a mockery of military power, their resources calculated to in- 
spire rather commiseration than fear. But their spirits were sus- 
tained, and their wearied hands upheld, by the benedictions and 
the succors of the friends of freedom. The memory of their great 
men of old went before them to battle, and scattered dismay in the 
ranks of the barbarous foe, as he moved, like Satan in hell, with 
uneasy steps, over the burning soil of freedom. The sympathy of 
all considerate and humane persons was enlisted in behalf of the 
posterity, however degenerate, of those who had taught letters and 
humanity to the world. Men could not bearwith patience, that 
Christian people, striking for liberty . should be trampled down by 
barbarian infidels, on the soil of Attica and Sparta. The public 
opinion of the world was enlisted on their side, — and Liberty her- 
self, personified, seemed touched with compassion, as she heard the 
cry of her venerated parent, the guardian genius of Greece. She 
hastened to realize the holy legend of the Roman daughter, and 
send back from her pure bosom the tide of life to the wasting form 
of her parent : — 

The milk of bis own gift; — it is her sire 

To whom she renders back the debt of blood, 

Born with her birth; — no, be shall not expire. 

Greece did not expire. The sons of Greece caught new life from 
desperation: the plague of the Turkish arms was stayed ; till the 
governments followed, where the people had led the way, and the 
war, which was sustained bj the literarj and religious sympathies 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 403 

of the friends of art and science, was brought to a triumphant close, 
by the armies and navies of Europe : — and there they now stand, 
the first great re-conquest of modern civilization. 

Many, I doubt not, who hear me, have had the pleasure, within 
a few weeks, of receiving a Greek oration, pronounced in the tem- 
ple of Theseus, on the reception at Athens of the first official act 
of the young Christian prince, under whom the government of this 
interesting country is organized. What contemplations does it not 
awaken, to behold a youthful Bavarian prince, deputed by the great 
powers of Europe to go, with the guaranties of letters, religion, and 
the arts, to the city of Minerva, which had reached the summit of 
human civilization ages before Bavaria had emerged from the depths 
of the Black Forest ! One can almost imagine the shades of the 
great of other days, the patriots and warriors, the philosophers and 
poets, the historians and orators, rising from their renowned graves, 
to greet the herald of their country's restoration. One can almost 
fancy that the sacred dust of the Ceramicus must kindle into life, 
as he draws near; that the sides of Delphi and Parnassus, and the 
banks of the Ilissus, must swarm with the returning spirits of ancient 
times. Yes ! Marathon and Thermopylae are moved to meet him 
at his coming. Martyrs of liberty, names that shall never die, — 
Solon and Pericles, Socrates and Phocion, not now with their cups 
of hemlock in their hands, but with the deep lines of their living 
cares effaced from their serene brows, — at the head of that glori- 
ous company of poets, sages, artists and heroes, which the world 
has never equalled, descend the famous road from the Acropolis to 
the sea, to bid the deliverer welcome to the land of glory and the 
arts. ' Remember,' they cry, ' Oh, Prince ! the land thou art set 
to rule ; it is the soil of freedom. Remember the great and wise 
of old, in whose place thou art called to stand, — the fathers of lib- 
erty ; remember the precious blood which has wet these sacred 
fields ; pity the bleeding remnants of what was once so grand and 
fair ; respect these time-worn and venerable ruins ; raise up the 
fallen columns of these beautiful fanes, and consecrate them to the 
Heavenly Wisdom ; restore the banished muses to their native seat ; 
be the happy instrument, in the hand of Heaven, of enthroning let- 
ters, and liberty, and religion, on the summits of our ancient hills ; 
and pay back the debt of the civilized world to reviving, regener- 



404 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

ated Greece. So shall the blessing of those ready to perish come 
upon thee, and ages after the vulgar train of conquerors and princes 
is forgotten, thou shah be remembered, as the youthful restorer of 
Greece ! ' 

This is a most importanl step in the extension of civilization ; 
what is to binder its farther rapid progress, I own, I do not per- 
ceive. On the contrary, it seems to me, thai political causes are 
in operation, destined, at no very distant period, to throw open the 
whole domain of ancient improvemenl to the greal modern instru- 
ments of national education. — the press, free government, and the 
Christian faith. The Ottoman power. — a government, which, till 
lately, has shown itself hostile to all improvement, — is already dis- 
lodged from its main positions in Europe, and will, no doubt, before 
long, be removed from thai which it still retains. 'The Turk, who 
four centuries ago threatened Italy, and long since that period car- 
ried tenor to the gates of Vienna, will soon find it no cas\ matter 
to sustain himSelf in Constantinople. Ili< empire is already, as it 
were, encircled by that of Russia, a government despotic indeed, 
but belonging to the school of European civilization, acknowledg- 
ing the same law of nations, connected with the intellectual familj 

of western Europe and America, and making most rapid advances 
iii the education of the various races which fill her vast domain. 
It is true, thai some prejudices exisl againsl thai government, at the 
presi nt time, in the minds of the friends of liberal institutions. 
Hut let it not be forgotten, that within the last century, as great a 
work of improvemenl lias been carried on in the Russian empire as 
ver accomplished, in an equal period, in the history of man ; 
and that it is doubtful whether, in any other way. than through the 
medium of such a government, the lighl of the mind could pene- 
trate to a tenth pari of the heterogeneous materials of which thai 
empire is composed. 

It is quite within the range of political probability, thai the ex- 
tended dominion of the czar w id be the immediate agenl of n 
erating western Asia. If so, I care not how soon the Russian 
banner is planted on the walls of Constantinople. No man can 
suppose that an instantaneous transition can be made in Asiatic 
Turkey, from the presenl condition of those regions to one of pure 
republican liberty . The process must be gradual, and may be slow . 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 405 

If the Russian power be extended over them, it will be a civilized 
and a Christian sway. Letters, law, and religion will follow in the 
train ; and the foundation will be laid for further progress, — in the 
advancing intelligence of the people. 

On the African coast, the great centre of barbarism has fallen ; 
and the opportunity seems to present itself of bringing much of 
that interesting region within the pale of civilization, under the aus- 
pices of one of the politest nations in Europe. The man who, but 
fifteen years ago, should have predicted that within so short a period 
of time, Greece would be united into an independent state under a 
European prince ; — that a Russian alliance should be sought, to 
sustain the tottering power of the Ottoman porte ; — that Algiers, 
which had so long bid defiance to Christendom, would be subject- 
ed ; that a flourishing colony of the descendants of Africa should 
be planted on its western coast ; and that the mystery of the Niger 
would be solved, and steamboats be found upon its waters, would 
have been deemed a wild enthusiast. And now, when we reflect, 
that, at so many different points, the whole power of modern civil- 
ization is turned upon western Asia and Africa ; — that our printing 
presses, benevolent institutions, missionary associations, and govern- 
ments, are exerting their energies, to push the empire of improve- 
ment into the waste places, — when we consider, that the generation 
coming forward in these regions, will live under new influences, and, 
instead of the Mussulman barbarism, repressing every movement 
toward liberty and refinement, that the influence and interest of the 
leading powers of Europe will be exerted to promote the great 
end ; is it too sanguine to think, that a grand and most extensive 
work of national education is begun, not destined to stand still, or 
go backward ? Go backward, did I say ; what is to hinder its in- 
definite progress ? Why should these regions be doomed to perpet- 
uated barbarity ? Hitherto they have been kept barbarous by the 
influence of an anti-christian, despotic, illiterate government. At 
present, vast regions, both of eastern and western Asia, and por- 
tions of Africa, on the M editerranean and Atlantic coasts, are under 
the protection of enlightened, civilized and Christian governments, 
whose interest and genius are alike pledged to promote the improve- 
ment of their subjects. Why should they not improve, and im- 
prove with rapidity ? They occupy a soil, which once bore an 



406 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

intelligent population. They breathe a climate, beneath which 
the arts and letters once flourished. They inhabit the coasts ot 
that renowned sen, whose opposite shores of old seemed to respond 
lo each other, in grand intellectual concert, like the emulous choirs 
of some might) cathedral, sending hack to each other, from the re- 
sounding galleries, the alternate swell of triumph and praise. They 
arc still inhabited by men. — rational, immortal men. — men of no 
mean descent, — whose progenitors enrolled their names high on the 
li-t- of renow n. 

For myself, I see oothing to prevent, and little finally to retard 
the work. The causes are adequate to it- achievi ment, — the tunes 
are propitious, — the indications are significant, — and the work itself, 
though greal indeed, is in no degree chimerical or extravagant. 
\\ hat is it ? — To teach those who have eyes, to see ; to pour in- 
struction into ears open to receive it: to aid rational minds to think ; 
to kindle immortal souls to a consciousness of their faculties; toco- 
operate with the strong and irrepressible tendency of our natures; 
to raise, out of barbarity and stupidity, men, who belong to the 
same race of beings as .Newton and Locke, as Shakspearc and 
.Milton, as Franklin and Washington. Let others doubl the possi- 
bilit) of doing it ; I cannot conceive the possibility of its remaining 
much longer undone. The difficulty of civilizing Asia and Africa .- 
[ am more struck with the difficulty of keeping them barbarous. 

When I think what man is. in his powers and improvable capaci- 
ties; — when | reded on the principles of education, as 1 have al- 

read\ attempted in this address to develop them, my wonder is at 

the condition to which man is sunk, and with which he i- content. 

and not at any project or prophec) of his elevation. On the con- 
trary, I see a thousand causes al work, to hasten the civilization of 
the world. I mt the interest of the commercial nations enlisted 
in the cause of humanit\ and religion. I see refinement, and the 
arts, and Christianity, borne on the white wings of trade, to the 
farthest shores, and penetrating, bj mysterious rivers, the hidden 
; might) continent-. I behold a private company, begin- 
ning with i- mercial adventure, ending in a might) association "l 

merchant princes, and extending a government ot Christian men 
over a hundred million- of benighted heathens in the barbarous 
K.i i and thus opening a direct channel of communication between 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 407 

the very centre of European civilization and the heart of India. 
I see the ambition of extended sway, carrying the eagles of a pros- 
perous empire, and with them, the fruitful rudiments of a civilized 
rule, over the feeble provinces of a neighboring despotism. I see 
the great work of African colonization auspiciously commenced, 
promising no scant) indemnity for the cruel wrongs which that 
much injured continent has endured from the civilized world, and 
sending home to the shores of their lathers an intelligent well-edu- 
cated colored population, going back with all the arts of life to this 
long oppressed land ; and I can see the soldiers of the cross beneath 
the missionary banner, penetrating the most inaccessible regions, 
reaching the most distant islands, and achieving, in a few years, a 
creation of moral and spiritual education, for which centuries might 
have seemed too short. When I behold all these active causes, 
backed by all the power of public sentiment. Christian benevolence, 
the social principle, and the very spirit of the age, I can believe 
almost any thing of hope and promise. I can believe every thing 
sooner, than that all this mighty moral enginery can remain power- 
less and ineffectual. It is against the law of our natures,' fallen 
though they be, which tend not downwards but upwards. To 
those who doubt the eventual regeneration of mankind, 1 would say, 
in the language which the wise and pious poet has put into the 
mouth of the fallen angel, 

Let such bethink them, — 
That in our proper motion we ascend 
Up to our native seat. Descent and fall 
To us are adverse. 

Let him who is inclined to distrust the efficiency of the social and 
moral causes which are quietly at work for the improvement of the 
nations, reflect on the phenomena of the natural world. Whence 
come the waters, which swell the vast current of the great rivers, 
and (ill up the gulls of the bottomless deep? — Have they not all 
gone up to the clouds, in a most thin and unseen vapor, from the 
wide surface of land and sea? — Have not these future billows, on 
which navies are soon to be tossed, in which the '.neat monsters of 
the deep will disport themselves, been home aloft on the bosom of 
a fleecy cloud. — chased by a breeze, — with scarce enough of sub- 
stance to catch the hues of a sunbeam ; — and have they not de- 



408 I \ I.UETT'S ORATION-. 

scended, sometimes indeed, in drenching rains, — but far more dif- 
fusively in dew -drop-, and gentle showers, and feathery snows, 
o\er the expanse of a continent, and been gathered successively 
into the slender rill, the brook, the placid stream, till they grew, at 
last, into the mightj river, pouring down his tributary Hoods into 
the unfathomed ocean r 

Yes ! let him who wishes to understand the power of the prin- 
ciples at work for the improvement of our race, — if he cannot com- 
prehend their vigor in the schools of learning. — if he cannot see 
the promise of their efficiency in the very character of the human 
mind: — if. in the page of history, sacred and profane, checkered 
with vicissitude as it is, he cannot, nevertheless, behold the clear 
indications of a progressive nature, let him accompany the mission- 

an bark to the Sandwich [slands. He will there behold a people 
sunk, till within fifteen years, in the depths of savage and of hea- 
then barbarity, — indebted to the intercourse of the civilized world 
for nothing but wasting diseases and degrading vices: placed by 
Providence in a garden of fertility and plenty, but by revolting 
systems of tyranny and superstition, kept in a state of want, cor- 
ruption, war. and misery. The Christian benevolence of a private 
American association casts its eyes upon them. Three or four in- 
dividuals, without power, without arms, without funds, except such 
as the frugal resources of private benevolence could furnish them. 
— strong only in pious resolutions, and the strength of a righteous 
cause, — land on these remote islands, and commence the task of 
moral and spiritual reform. [f ever there was a chimerical project 
in the eyes ofworldlj wisdom, this was one. If this enterprise is 
feasible, tell me what i< not! Within less than half the time usu- 
ally assigned to a generation of men, sixty thousands of individuals, 
in a population of one hundred and lifu thousands, have been 
taught the elements of human learning. Whole tribes of savages 
have demolished their idols, abandoned their ancienl cruel super- 
stitions and barbarous laws, and adopted some of the besl institu- 
tions of civilization and Christianity. It would. I think, be diffi- 
cult to lind. in the pages of history, the record of a moral improve- 
ment, of equal extent, effected in a -pace of time so inconsiderable, 
and furnishing so striking an exemplification of the power oi the 
mean- at work at the pre-, nt day. lor the education and improve- 
ment of man. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 



409 



If I mistake not, we behold, in the British empire in the East, 
another most auspicious agency for the extension of moral influences 
over that vast region. It is true, that hitherto, commercial profit 
and territorial aggrandizement have seemed to be the only objects, 
which have been pursued by the government. But when we look 
at home, at the character of the British people, an enlightened, 
benevolent and liberal community : when we consider the power 
of the press and the force of public sentiment in that country, and 
the disposition to grapple with the most arduous questions, evinced 
by its rulers, we may hope, without extravagance, that a glorious 
day of improvement is destined to dawn on India, under the patron- 
age and auspices of Great Britain. The thoughts of her public- 
spirited and benevolent men have long been bent on this great 
object. Some of the finest minds that have adorned our nature, 
have labored in this field. I need not recall to you the boundless 
learning, the taste ; and the eloquence of Sir William Jones, nor the 
classical elegance, the ardent philanthropy, the religious self-devo- 
tion of Heber ; nor repeat a long list of distinguished names, who, 
for fifty years, have labored for the diffusion of knowledge in the 
East. — Nor labored in vain. Cheering indications are given in 
various quarters, of a great moral change in the condition of these 
vast and interesting regions, once the abode of philosophy and the 
arts. The bloodiest and most revolting of the superstitions of the 
Hindoo paganism has been suppressed by the British government. 
The widow is no longer compelled, by the fanatical despotism 
of caste, to sacrifice herself on the funeral pile of her husband. 
The whole system of the castes is barely tolerated by the govern- 
ment ; and being at war with the fundamental principles of the 
British law, as it is with the interest of the great part of the pop- 
ulation, must, at no distant period, crumble away. The consolida- 
tion of the British empire in India promises a respite from the wars 
hitherto perpetually raging among the native states of India, and 
forming of themselves an effectual barrier to every advance out of 
barbarism. The field seems now open to genial influences. It is 
impossible to repress the hope, that out of the deep and living foun- 
tains of benevolence, in the land of our fathers, a broad and fertili- 
zing current will be poured over the thirsty plains of India, — the 
abodes of great geniuses in the morning of the world ; — and that 
51 



410 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

letters, arts, and religion will be extended to a hundred millions of 
these mild and oppressed fellow beings. 

Bui it is time to relieve your patience : I will do it, after a re- 
flection on the relation which this country bears to the work of 
general education : and all I wish to say will be comprised in one 
word of encouragement, and one of warning. 

The recenl agitations of the country have a bearing on the great 
moral questions we have heen discussing, more important, as it seems 
to me, than (heir immediate political aspect. In its present united 
condition, that of a state alread\ large and powerful, and rapidly 
increasing, — its population more generally well-educated, than that 
of any other country, and imbued with an unusual spirit of person- 
al, social, and moral enterprise, it presents in itself the most effect- 
ive organization imaginable, for the extension of the domain of 
improvement at home and abroad. The vital principle of this or- 
ganization is the union of its members. In this, the} enjoy an ex- 
emption from the heavy burden of great local establishments of 
government, and still more from the curse of neighboring states. — 
eternal border war. In virtue of this principle, they are enabled 
to devote all their energies, in peace and tranquillity, to the culti- 
vation of the arts of private life, and the pursuit of every great 
work of public utility, benevolence, and improvement. To attack 
the principle of union, is to attack the prosperity of the whole and 
of every part of the country ; it is to check the outward develop- 
ment of our national activity: to turn our resources and em 
now exerted in every conceivable manner, for public and private 

benefit, into nevi channels of mutual injury and ruin. Instead oi 
roads and canals to unite distanl State-, the hill tops of those w hich 
adjoin each other, would he crowned w ith fortresses ; and our means 
would he -trained to the utmost in the support of as many armies and 
navies as there were rival sovereignties. Nor would the evil rest 
with the waste of treasure. The thoughts and feelings of men 
would assume a new direction; and military renown, and rank, 
plunder and revenge, he the ruling principle- of die day. I )e-tro\ 

the Union of the States, and you destroy their character, changi 
their occupations, blast their prospects. You shul the annals oJ 

the republic, and open die hook of kin . ^ on shut the hook o! 
. and you open the book of war. \ on unbar thi 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 411 

hell to the legion of civil discord, ambition, havoc, bloodshed, and 



ruin 



! 

Let these considerations never be absent from our minds. But 
if the question is asked, What encouragement is there, that a vast 
deal can be done, in a short time, for the improvement of man ? I 
would say to him who puts the question. Look around you. In 
what country do you live ? under what state of things has it grown 
up ? Do you bear in mind, that in a space of time, one half of 
which has been covered by the lives of some yet in existence, in 
two hundred years, these wide-spread settlements, with so many 
millions of inhabitants, — abounding in all the blessings of life, more 
liberally and equally bestowed than in any other country, have 
been built up in a remote and savage wilderness ? Do you recol- 
lect, that it is not half a century, since, with a population compar- 
atively insignificant, she vindicated her independence, in a war 
against the oldest and strongest government on earth ? Do you 
consider, that the foundations of these powerful and prosperous 
States were laid by a few persecuted and aggrieved private citizens, 
of moderate fortune, unsupported, scarcely tolerated, by the govern- 
ment ? If you will go back to the very origin, do you not per- 
ceive, that, as if to consecrate this country, from the outset, as a 
most illustrious example of what a man can do, it was owing to the 
fixed impression on the heart of one friendless mariner, pursued 
through long years of fruitless solicitation, and fainting hope, that 
these vast American continents are made a part of the heritage of 
civilized men ? Look around you again, at the institutions which 
are the pride and blessing of the country. See our entire religious 
establishments, — unendowed by the state, supported by the uni- 
ted efforts of the individual citizens. See the great literary institu- 
tions of our country, especially those in New-England, — Dartmouth, 
Williams, Bowdoin, Brown, Amherst, and others, — founded by the 
liberality of citizens of moderate fortune, or by the small combined 
contributions of public-spirited benefactors, aided, at the most, by 
moderate endowments from the public treasury ; — and ' the two 
twins of learning,' if I may, without arrogance, name them apart 
from the rest ; this most efficient and respected seminary, within 
whose walls we are now convened, and my own ancient and be- 
loved Harvard ; to whom and what do they trace their origin ? — 



412 KVE RETT'S ORATIONS. 

Yale, to the ten worthy fathers, who assembled at Branford, in 
1700, and laying each a few volumes on the table, said, ' I give 
these books for the founding of a college in this colony ;' and Har- 
vard, to the dying munificence of an humble minister of the gos- 
pelj who landed on the shores of America, but to lay his dust in 
its soil ; but who did not finish his brief sojourn, till he had accom- 
plished a work of usefulness, which, we trust, will never die. 
Whence originated the great reform in our prisons, which has ac- 
complished its wonders of philanthropy and mercy, in the short 
space of eight years, and made the penitentiaries of America the 
model of the penal institutions of the world ? It had its origin in 
the visit of a missionary, with his Bible, to the convict's cell. — 
Whence sprang the mighty temperance reform, which has al- 
ready done so much to wipe off a great blot from the character of 
the country ? It was commenced on so small a scale, that it is not 
easy to assign its effective origin to a precise source. And coun- 
sels and efforts, as humble and inconsiderable at the outset, gave 
the impulse to the missionary cause of modern times, which, going 
forth, with its devoted champions, conquering and to conquer, be- 
neath 

the great ensign of Messiah, — 
Aloft by angels borne, their sign in Heaven, 

has already gained a peaceful triumph over the farthest islands, 
and added a new kingdom to the realms of civilization and Chris- 
tianity. 



ADDRESS 

DELIVERED AT BRIGHTON, BEFORE THE MASSACHUSETTS AGRICUL- 
TURAL SOCIETY, 16TH OCTOBER, 1833. 



It is generally admitted, that since the institution of cattle- 
shows in this country, the condition of our agriculture has been 
manifestly improved. Before their establishment, our husbandmen 
seemed to want those means of improvement, and encouragements 
to action, which are enjoyed by their fellow citizens engaged in sev- 
eral other pursuits. Instead of living together in large towns, they 
are scattered over the surface of the country. Instead of having two 
thirds of every newspaper which appears, filled with advertisements 
or information relative to their occupation, — as is the case with the 
merchants, — the most they could promise themselves was, that the 
weight of an enormous vegetable should be faithfully recorded ; 
and the memory of some calf, with two heads and six legs, be 
handed to posterity. They held no conventions and assemblies, 
like the clergy and physicians ; — were not brought together like 
the lawyers, at the periodical terms of court, to take sweet counsel 
with each other, for the public good ; and seemed not to possess, 
in any way, the means of a rapid comparison and interchange of 
opinion and feeling. 

Since the establishment of the cattle-show of the Massachusetts 
Agricultural Society, and those of the several county societies, this 
state of things has been greatly amended ; and to a considerable 
degree, I imagine, through the agency of these institutions. The 
cultivators of the soil are now brought too;ether. Their asricultu- 



Ill EVER] TT»S OB vi'iONS. 

ml Improvements, — their superior animals, — their implements of 
husbandry, — the products of their farms, — their methods of culti- 
vation, are all subjects of inquiry, comparison, and excitement. 
The premiums proposed, have given a spring t<> the enterprise of 
the cultivators ; not on account of the trifling pecuniary reward 
which is held out. bul under the influence oi a generous spiril <>f 
emulation. The agricultural magazines ami oewspapers take up 
the matter in this stage, ami give notorietj ami permanencj to all 
that is done or doing. The knowledge of ever) improvement is 
widel) diffused. Increased prosperity begins to show itself, as the 
reward of increased skill and knowledge ; ami thus the condition 
of the husbandman is rendered more comfortable ami more honor- 
able. 

\ wool o\' exhortation has become l>\ usage a pari of the cere- 
monial on these occasions; — and it has been thought not unseason- 
able, that the husbandmen's festival should afford some brief oppor- 
tunit) for the expression of opinion- on importanl interests connected 
with their pursuits, and for the inculcation of the sentiments which 
belong to the vocation, standing, and usefulness of die farmer. 
You have jusl left the exhibition grounds, where you have been 
e\ ( -w itnesses of the dexterity of our ploughmen : w heic you have 
admired the display of the strength and docility of the well-trained 

draught cattle: where \oii ha\ e examined the animals brought for- 
ward as specimens of the improvement oi their various races. ^ on 
have not. of course, retired from this animated ami interesting 
-chic. — thronged as it i- bj the assembled yeomanrj of the Com- 
monwealth, — the living masters of the great art of agriculture, — 
to come together here, with the view of gaining additional knowl- 
edge of matters of practical husbandry. This. I am well persuaded. 

at all events, is not expected from me. and I shall ha\e Itillilled 

the object for which I have been invited t<> appear before you, on 

this occasion, if | shall succeed, in an\ degree, in bringing home 
to the minds of those whom I have the honor to address, the im- 
portance and respectability of the occupation of the farmer, and 
his comparative condition in this and other COUntrii 

In the first place, then, let us say a wool of the importance ol 

the pursuit of the hushandnian. What rank docs agriculture hold. 
in the scale of Usefulness anion- die pursuits of men in civilized 



i.\ EBETT'S ORATIONS. 415 

communities? We shall arrive at a practical answer to this ques- 
tion, by considering, that it is agriculture which spreads the greal 
and bountiful table, at which the mighty family of civilized man 
p c< ives his daily bread. Something is yielded by the chase, and 
much more by the fisheries ; but the produce of the soil constitutes 
the great mass of the food of a civilized community, either directly 
in its native state, or through the medium of the animals U-A by it, 
which become, in their turn, the food of man. In like manner, 
agriculture furnishes the material for our clothing. Wool, cotton, 
flax, silk, leather, are the materials, of which nearly all our cloth- 
ing is composed ; and these are furnished by agriculture. In pro- 
ducing the various article- of clothing, the manufacturing arts are 
largely concerned, and commerce, in the exchange of raw materials 
and fabrics. These, therefore, to a considerable degree, rest on 
agriculture, as their ultimate foundation ; especially as il feeds all 
the other blanches of industry. 

If we suppose the population of this State to consume in food 
and clothing, on an average, half a dollar a week each, fund that 
is about half the cost of supporting a slave in the Southern States), 
it will give nearly fifty-two millions of agricultural produce con- 
sumed in Massachusetts in a year. In addition to this, is all that 
is consumed by the domestic animals, and all that is raised and not 
consumed, but exported, or otherwise given in exchange for articles 
of value, which are preserved and accumulatt d. 

\ riculture seems to be the first pursuit of civilized man. It 
enable-, him to escape from the life of the savage, and the wander- 
ing shepherd, into that of social man. gathered into fixed commu- 
nities, and surrounding himself with the comforts and blessings of 
neighborhood, country, and home. The savage lives by the chase, 
— a precarious and wretched ind) pendence. The Arab and the 
Tartar roam, with their flocks and herds, over a vasl i< gion, desti- 
tute of all those refinements, which require for their growth the fea- 
tures of a permanent residence, and a community organized into 
the variou - and trade-. They are found now, 

after a lapse of four thousand years, precisely in the same condi- 
tion in which they existed in the flays of Abraham, it is agricul- 
ture alone, that fixes men in stationary dwellings, in villages, to 
and cities, and enables the work of civilization, in all its branches, 
to go on. 



410 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

Agriculture was held in honorable estimation, by the most en- 
lightened nations of antiquity. Jn the infancy of commerce and 
manufactures, its relative rank among the occupations of men was 
necessarily higher than now. The patriarchs of the ancient Scrip- 
ture limes cultivated the soil. Abraham was very rich in cattle, in 
gold, and in silver. Job farmed on a very large scale : he had seven 
thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, 
and live hundred she-asses. In Greece, the various improvements 
in husbandry, the introduction of the nutritive grains, and the in- 
vention of convenient instruments for tilling the soil, were regard- 
ed as the immediate bounties of the gods. At a later period, land 
was almost the only article of property; and those who cultivated 
it, if they were freemen, were deemed a more respectable class 
than manufacturers and mechanics, who were mostly slaves. Among 
the Romans, agriculture was still more respected than among the 
Greeks. In the best and purest times of the republic, the most 
distinguished citizens, the proudest patricians, lived on their farm-. 
and labored with their own hands. Cato the censor was both a 
practical and scientific farmer, and wrote a treatise on the art : — 
and who has not heard of Cincinnatus? When the Sabines had 
advanced with a superior army to the walls of the city, the people, 
although at that period greatly disaffected toward the patricians, de- 
manded that Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, one of that unpopular 
class, should be created Dictator, — that is, that all the laws, and 
the power of all the magistrates should be suspended, and despotic 
authority vested in his hand-. Livy, in relating the occurrence, 
cannot help breaking out in the exclamation, ' That it is well worth 
the attention of those who despise even thing on earth but money, 
and think thai there is no place for honor or virtue, except where 
wealth abounds. The sole hope of the Roman empire, (adds he), 
in this the day of her extremity. L. Quinctius, was cultivating, at 
this time, a farm beyond the Tiber, which still hear- his name, and 
which consisted of four acres. There he was found by the messen- 
gers who were sent to hail him as Dictator, leaning on his spade, or 
holding his plough. After having raised an army and defeated the 

enemy, he laid down, in sixteen days, the dictatorship, which he 
was authorizi d to hold for six months, and on the seventeenth day. 
gol back to bis farm. 9 ' 

• I. iv lib. III. § 26. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 417 

In the progress of wealth and luxury, in the Roman empire, the 
class of husbandmen sunk from their original estimation, in conse- 
quence of the employment of vast numbers of slaves on the estates 
of the great landholders. Still, however, there was a large and 
respectable class of rural tenantry, who cultivated at the halves the 
lands of the rich proprietors ; and the free and independent citi- 
zens who tilled their own small farms, like the great men of better 
days, never wholly disappeared till the overthrow of the Roman 
empire, by the invasion of the barbarous tribes. 

On the destruction of the Roman empire, the feudal system arose 
in Europe, a singularly complicated plan of military despotism. In 
this system, the possession of the land was made the basis of the mil- 
itary defence of the country. The king was the ultimate proprietor ; 
and apportioned the territory among the great lords, his retainers. 
Those who cultivated the soil were slaves, the property of their 
lord, and were bought and sold with the cattle which they tended. 
Sir Walter Scott, in describing, with his graphic pen, one of this 
class of the former population of England, after depicting the other 
peculiarities of his costume, adds, a trait which speaks volumes 
as to their condition, — ' One part of his dress only remains, but 
it is too remarkable to be suppressed ; it was a brass ring, resembling 
a dog's collar, but without any opening, and soldered fast round 
his neck ; so loose as to form no impediment to his breathing ; yet 
so tight as to be incapable of being removed, excepting by the use 
of the file. On this singular gorget was engraved in Saxon char- 
acters, " Gurth, the son of Beowulph, is the born thrall of Cedric." ' 
There is but one reflection wanting, to give us the full conception 
of the degradation of the peasantry of this period, which is, that 
these ' born thralls ' were the original rightful masters of the soil, 
subjected to foreign conquerors. 

If the estimate of Dr Lingard can be trusted, two thirds of the 
population of England, under the Anglo-Saxons, were of this class. 
They were either the native race, enslaved by their conquerors, or 
free born Anglo-Saxons, reduced to slavery for debt, — (a crime 
still punished by imprisonment). — for offences against the laws, or 
by a voluntary surrender of their liberty, as a refuge from want. 
Their occupations were, of course, as various as the wants or will 
52 



11- EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

of their masters mighl dictate ; but their persons, families, and 
goods of every description were the property of their lord. He 
could dispose of them as lie pleased, by gift or sale ; he could an- 
nex them to the soil, or remove them from it; he could transfer 
thi in with it to a new proprietor, or leave them by will to his heirs. 
Main such devises are -till on record. Even the slave-trade exist- 
ed in all its horrors, and in a form scarcely less abominable than in 
modern times. Slaves were -old openly in the market, during the 
whole of the Anglo-Saxon period, and it is supposed that the value 
of a slave was fourfold that of an ox. The importation of foreign 
slav< S was unrestrained, hut the exportation of native- was strictly 
forbidden. The Northumbrians, however, in their eager pursuit of 
gain, despised the prohibition, and are said to have carried off, not 
merely their countrymen, hut their friends and relatives, and sold 
them as slaves, in the ports of the continent. Bristol, as in mod- 
ern times, was infamous for the zeal with which her merchant- pros- 
ecuted this detestable traffic. It was abandoned at length, with 
slavery itself, under the mild and humanizing influence of Chris- 
tianity.* 

What reflections are not awakened by the fact, that, ten 
ci nturies ago, two thirds of the population of England, the land 
of our forefather-, were horn slaves, who wore dogs' collars soldered 
round their necks, and were bought and sold like slave- in the 

market ! 

But these are times long since past. Let us proceed to the 
next topic, which invite- our attention, — the condition of the cul- 
tivators of the soil, at the presenl day, and especially their com- 
parative condition in Europe and America. 1 do not know in what 
way so effectually, the New-England yeoman can be made proud 
of hi- calling, and happy in its pursuit, as by instituting this com- 
parison. 

There are, then, four principal -tates or conditions, in which the 
agricultural population ofmodern Europe and America is found: — 
and among these four States, 1 do not include that of the We-t In- 
dian and North American slaves. 

* Lingard'i History of England, Vol. I, p. 502. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 



419 



First and lowest in the scale of those, by whom the soil is culti- 
vated in Europe, are the serfs of Russia. In the different prov- 
inces of this vast empire, about thirty millions of souls, (nearly the 
entire population employed in husbandry), are found almost exact- 
ly in the state which has already been described, under the feudal 
system. Some ameliorations have been introduced in some prov- 
inces, and not in others ; and in the south-western portions of the 
empire, as Courland and Livonia, principally settled by Germans, 
the system of actual slavery has been abolished by law. But with 
these local exceptions, the Russian peasantry continue the property 
of the land owner, and may be sold by him with or without the 
land, as he pleases. He has power to give or to sell them their 
freedom, and power to keep them in slavery ; the power to chas- 
tise them, and to imprison them ; and in all respects to dispose 
of them, with the exception of taking life, or preventing their 
being enlisted into the army. But when a draft is ordered by the 
government, the landlord directs who shall march. The wealth of 
a great landholder is estimated by the number of his peasants ; and 
individuals in the Russian empire are named, who possess a hun- 
dred thousand and even a hundred and twenty thousand slaves. 
Each individual peasant, of either sex, is bound, from the age of 
fifteen, to pay the avrock, or capitation tax, of about four dollars 
per annum. This is taken in lieu of performing three days' labor, 
in each week, to which the landlord is entitled by the law. In 
addition to this, the serf has to account to his lord for a certain 
part of all his produce ; and besides all, he is subject to the govern- 
ment taxes. If the peasant chooses to make an "effort to rise above 
his condition, he must apply to his lord for permission to leave the 
spot where he was born, and pursue some other trade. If this oc- 
cupation be a more lucrative one, his annual tax is proportionably 
increased.* Such is the condition of the entire civilized portion of 
the Russian empire ; and it is needless to state, that it places this 
portion far below the wild Tartars, who own a nominal subjection 
to the Russian sceptre, and pay a trifling tribute for the privilege 
of roaming their remote steppes, unmolested and free. 

* Clark's Travels in Russia, Vol. I, p. 218, where will be found, in a note, a 
very interesting extract on this subject, from Bishop Heber's MS. Journal. 



T20 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

] have already remarked, that the condition in which the agri- 
cultural population exists in Russia, is but little if any better than 
that of the vassals, under the feudal system. When this system 
was undermined, the character of the peasantry assumed a new 
form, in which ii slid exists, in a considerable part of Europe. 
The sovereigns found it for their interest to weaken the power of 
the greal barons, by granting privileges to their small retainers: 
and either from the same motives of policy, or from higher consid- 
erations of Christian charity, the church of Rome united with the 
kings in elevating the condition of the peasantry. Pope Alexan- 
der III, in the twelfth century, published a hull for the general 
emancipation of slaves.* B) degrees the villains, (for such was 
the ill-omened name given by our forefathers to the cultivators of 
tin soil), rose to the possession of some of the rights of freemen : 
but it was not till the reign of Charles II. that villenage was vir- 
tually suppressed by statute.f On the continent of Europe, when 
the abject servitude of the feudal system was broken up, the peas- 
ants became tenants at the halves; and such are a considerable 
portion of the cultivators of the soil, at the present day. It was 
calculated thai in France, before the revolution, seven eighths of 
the agricultural population were Metayers, that is. tenants at the 
halves. The revolution has greatly increased the number of small 
proprietors, in consequence of the sale of the estates of emigrants, 
and of the public domain ; hut one half of the cultivators of the 
soil, it is supposed, are still tenants at the halves. Such a tenancy 
is not wholly unheard of in this country. The estates in Loin- 
bardy, and in some other parts of Italy, arc cultivated in this way. 
The terms of the contract between the landlord and the ten an 1 
are not uniform : in some cases a third, and in others a half of tin 
produce belongs to the landlord. In some cases, the landlord 6nds 
the whole of the stock and the -*<vi\. in other-, the half. In some 
cases, the tenant has a property in the lease, which descends to his 
children; in others, he is a tenant at will: in others, the leases are 
periodically renewed at short intervals. But, however the details 

of Nations, \ "I. II. p. 91. London, 1822. 
+ -j Blackstone, !><;. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 421 

may vary, the system resolves itself, in the main, into a general sys- 
tem of tenancy at the halves. It is considered highly unfavorable 
to the improvement of agriculture. There is a constant struggle, 
on the side of each party, to get as much as possible out of the 
land, with the least possible outlay. The tenant has no interest in 
using the stock with care and prudence, as this is to be replaced 
by the landlord. In France, the effect of this system is acknowl- 
edged by the best writers in that country to be pernicious.* A 
better account of it is given in Lombardy. There the tenant 
has the whole of the clover, and divides only the wheat, Indian 
corn, flax, wine, and silk. The landlord advances nothing but the 
taxes. 

This mode of occupying the land was formerly common in Eng- 
land, but is little known there at the present day. The great ma- 
jority of farms are there the property of large landholders ; and are 
cultivated by tenants, who take them on leases, the terms of which 
vary according to circumstances, both as to the amount of the rent 
and the duration of the lease. 

It has been a question much debated in England, whether a sys- 
tem of this kind, by which the land is principally held in large 
farms belonging to the aristocracy of the country, and cultivated by 
tenants on lease, is more favorable to the improvement of agricul- 
ture than the multiplication of small farms. It has been urged, 
that great and expensive improvements in farming, cannot take 
place without great capital, which can only be furnished by large 
proprietors. It is these alone, who can reclaim wastes, — convert 
sandy plains into fertile fields, — drain extensive fens, — or shut out 
the sea from large tracts of meadow. All this is true ; but where 
great improvements are made by the application of large amounts 
of capital ; the return is not to the tenant, but to the capitalist. A 
judicious operation upon a poor soil may turn it into a good one : 
the soil may produce twice as much as it did before ; but the rent, 

* Say, Tom. II, p. 174. See, also, Arthur Young's Tour. — The views taken, in 
this address, of all the subjects alluded to are necessarily superficial. A very in- 
structive discussion of the condition of the cultivators of the soil in the different 
states of modern Europe, may be found inSismondi's JVouveaux Principes d' Econ- 
omic politique, Tom. I, p. 186. 



422 El I. RETT'S ORATIONS. 

in that case, will be doubled. The landlord has doubled his capi- 
tal ; but it will depend on other circumstances, whether any bene- 
ficia) change is produced in the condition of the tenant. The 
neighborhood, it is true will be improved by the new creation of 
property, — the population will increase, — and, indirectly, every 
individual's condition will he improved, by living in a larger com- 
munity : hut directly, 1 cannot perceive that the tenant is benefit- 
ted : inasmuch as it is plain, that precisely as the land is rendered 
more productive, the rent increases. As the landed interest in 
England is the main interest of the country, and the accumula- 
tion of large estates in land is the most important element in their 
system, ever} thing is made to favor this mode of cultivating the 
land, and the small proprietor labors under great disadvantages. 
Wherever he moves, he has a wealthy rival to contend with, able 
to overbid and to undersell him; and as things now are in Eng- 
land, it is very possible that the condition of the tenant in that 
country is more desirable than that of the small farmer. But 
this, I conceive, proves nothing in the argument, whether the 
condition of the tenant or the proprietor of a small farm is to 
be preferred. It is, in fact, justly made a leading objection to 
the English system of tenancy, by the learned French writer al- 
ready quoted, (M. de Sismondi),* that it tends to the extermi- 
nation of the small proprietors, and to reduce the cottagers, peas- 
ants, and all those by whom, under whatever name, the labor of 
cultivation is performed, to a state of abject and servile depend- 
ence. 

This brings me to the consideration of the fourth and last state, 
in which the cultivator of the soil is found ; and that is, the condi- 
tion w 1 1 i ( ■ 1 1 almosl universally obtains in the non-slave-holding State-, 
of this country, and especially in New-England, in which the 
farmer is the proprietor of the soil : — and I canool bul express my 
decided conviction, that this condition is the most favorable to the 
prosperity of the state and the happiness of the individual. It will 
immediately be perceived, that it is not inconsistent with the pos- 
a of some very ample landed estates by individuals. In a 

• .Nouvcaux Principea, Tom. I, p. 1217. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 423 

country like ours, where every man's capacity, industry, and good 
fortune are left free, to work their way without prejudice, as far as 
possible ; there will be among the agricultural, as well as among 
the commercial population, fortunes of all sizes ; from that of the 
man who owns his thousand acres, — his droves of cattle, — his flocks 
of sheep, — his range of pastures, — his broad fields of mowing and 
tillage, — down to the poor cottager who can scarce keep his cow 
over winter. There will always be, in a population like ours, op- 
portunities enough for those who cannot own a farm, to hire one ; 
and for those who cannot hire one, to labor in the employment of 
their neighbors, who need their services ; and when we maintain 
that it is for the welfare of the society, that the land should be cul- 
tivated by an independent yeomanry, who own the soil they till, 
we mean only that this should be the general state and condition 
of things, and not that there should be no such thing as a wealthy 
proprietor, whose lands, in whole or in part, are cultivated by a 
tenant ; — no such thing as a prudent husbandman taking a farm on 
a lease; — or an industrious young man, — without any capital but 
his hands, — laboring in the employ of his neighbor. These all are 
parts of the system, as it exists among us. And we maintain that 
it is a better system than the division of the country into a few vast 
domains cultivated by a dependent tenantry, to the almost total 
exclusion of the class of small independent farmers. 

Am I asked, Why is it better ? This is a question not easy to 
bring clown to a dry argument. It involves political and moral 
considerations ; — it trenches on the province of the feelings ; — it 
concerns the whole character of a people. 

In a pecuniary point of view, it is not, of course, maintained, 
that because it is desirable that the cultivator should own a farm, 
it is therefore expedient that he should, in all cases, attempt to 
purchase one. It cannot, as a general rule, be assumed, that it is 
better for a young man to buy a farm than to hire one, supposing 
him to have no more capital than is necessary to stock his farm, 
aiul purchase implements of husbandry. If he buys, he must 
mortgage his farm for the payment ; and the interest on the pur- 
chase money will, perhaps, be greater than the rent he would have 
to pay for a farm equally good. Whether it is good policy, for a 



K>] EVF.RETT'S ORATION-. 

man, not having capital enough at once to pay for his farm, to buj 
one. depends upon his energy and talent. — the situation and quali- 
ty of the tami. — and the prospect that, within a reasonable period 
of time, and the enjoymenl of an average success, he can paj for 
it. If he cannot do this, he can in no sense become the owner ol 
a farm ; — he can only encumber himself with the responsibility of 
it, paying more in the shape of interest, than he would have to 
pa) in that of rent. But, supposing a young man, at the com- 
mencement of life, and desirous of passing his days on the soil 
which ^a vi: him hii'th. pos>< inueh capital, that hesides 

stocking a farm, he can do something toward it- purchase at the 
outset, with a reasonable expectation that, in the course ol' time, 
with industry, perseverance, and temperance, he can make it his 
own. then it is better that he should purchase than hire. He has 
then, the strongest inducements to be industrious, frugal, and tem- 
perate; for every dollar he can save, passes silently into invest- 
ment, in paying off his debt. The earnings of the tenant are in 
danger of being needlessly spenl or lost, lor want of a -ale and 
ready investment. The owner makes improvements with zeal and 
spirit, for he makes them On hi- own soil; in the assurance that he 
or his children will nap the benefit of them, and every new im- 
provement furnishes a new stimulus to those efforts which are ne- 
cessar) to pay oh' the debt. But no person takes a genuine pleas- 
ure in improving another man'- property. It is the interest of the 
tenant to gel as much out of the soil a- he can. and to give as lit- 
tle hack to it. When he has exhausted i\\)r farm, he can take 
another. Tints the land, as far as it is cultivated in this way, is 
undergoinga gradual decay ; but not moresurel) than the generous 
principle in the heart of him who thus occupies it. and who is 
perpetually, though perhaps unconsciously, under the influence of 
his interest, engaged in d iteriorating his neighbor's property. The 
owner is under precisely the opposite influence, and especially 
while it is necessary to make his farm as productive as possible. 
lie strives to render back to it as much as possible in return for 
what he takes from it. For he feels that he is making it the de- 
positor) of all that his youth and manhood can lay up for th 
cline of life, for his family, and his children. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 425 

Whatever, in this way, is true, with respect to the young farmer 
who has purchased his farm on credit, is still more applicable to 
him who happily begins life, the proprietor of the soil which he 
cultivates. It is particularly in reference to him, that the subject 
presents itself in other relations than those of pecuniary calcula- 
tion, and assumes the aspect not merely of an economical, but also 
of a political question. In general, the inquiry, how the land is 
cultivated, derives great consequence from its connexion with the 
political condition of the cultivators. A very considerable portion 
of the political power of every country must be vested in the land- 
holders ; for they hold a large part of the property of the country. 
They do so even in England, where there is such a vast amount 
of commercial and manufacturing wealth. Although the land is, 
to a considerable degree, in England, monopolized by rich proprie- 
tors, yet attempts have been made, and with success, to give polit- 
ical privileges and consequence to the tenantry. Still, however, 
the greatest landholder, in most of the countries, is generally able 
to carry the elections as he pleases. I have read, and that too, 
since the passage of the Reform Bill, in the English newspapers, 
of voters being refused a renewal of leases, which had been in the 
family two generations, in consequence of voting against their land- 
lord's candidate. There is no way in which a calm, orderly and 
intelligent exercise and control of political power can be assured 
to the people, but by a distribution among them, as equally as pos- 
sible, of the property of the country ; and I know no manner, in 
which such a distribution can be effected, legally, permanently, and 
peacefully, but by keeping the land in small farms, suitable to be 
cultivated by their owners. Under such a system, and under no 
other, the people will exercise their rights with independence. 
The assumption of a right to dictate, will be frowned at, if attempted ; 
and even the small portion of the population who may be tenants, 
will possess the spirit and freedom of the proprietors. But when the 
great mass of the land is parcelled out into a few immense estates, 
cultivated by a dependent tenantry, the unavoidable consequence 
is a sort of revival of the feudal ages, when the great barons took 
the field against each other at the head of their vassals.* 

* Story's Commentaries, I, p. 160. — p. 166. 

53 



426 i:\ ERETT'S OB \Tlo\-. 

But, I own. it i- noi even on political grounds, that 1 think our 
system of independent rural freeholders is mosl strongly entitled to 
the preference, [ts moral aspects, it- connexion with the charac- 
ter and feelings of the yeomanry give it, alter all, its greatest value. 
The man who stands upon his own soil; who feels, that by the 
laws of the land in which he lives, — by the law of civilized na- 
tions, — he is the rightful and exclusive owner of the land which hi' 
tills, is. by the constitution of our nature, under a wholesome in- 
fluence, not easily imbibed from any other source. He feels, — 
other thin-- being equal, — more stronglj than another, the charac- 
ter of man as the lord of the inanimate world. Of this great and 
wonderful sphere, which, fashioned by the hand of God. and up- 
held by his power, is rolling through the heavens, a portion is his: 
— his. from the C( ntre to the sky. It is the space, on which the 
generations before him moved in it- round of duties : and he i'vcU 
himself connected, b) a visible link, with those who preceded him. 
a- he is. also, to tlio-e who will follow him. and to whom he is to 
transmit a home. Perhaps his farm has come down to him from 
his father-. They have gone to their lasl home: hut he can trace 
their footsteps over the daily scene of his labors. The roof which 
shelters him. was reared !>v those to whom he owes his being. 
Some interesting domestic tradition is connected with every enclo- 
sure. The favorite fruit tree was planted by his father's hand, lie 
sported, in hi- boyhood, by the side of the brook, which still winds 
through his meadow. Through that field, lies the path to the -vil- 
lage school of his earliest days. He Mill hears from his window, 
the voice of the Sabbath hell, which called hi- fathers and his fore- 
fathers to the house of God; and near at hand is the spot where 
he laid his parents down to rest, and where he trusts, when his 
hour i- come, he shall he dutifully laid by his children. These are 
the feelings of the owner of the soil. Words cannot paint them : 
gold cannot buy them : — they How out of the deepest feehn 
the heart ; — the\ are the life-spring of a fresh, healthy, generous 
national character. 

The histor) and experience of the world illustrate their power. 
Whoever heard "l' an enlightened race of serfs. slave-, or \assals? 

Ilow can we wonder at the forms of government which prevail ill 

Europe, with such a system of monopoly in the land, as there ex- 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 427 

ists ? Nothing but this explains our own history, — clears up the 
mystery of the Revolution, — and makes us fully comprehend the 
secret of our own strength. Austria or France must fall, whenever 
Vienna or Paris is seized by a powerful army. But what was the 
loss of Boston or New- York, in the revolutionary war, to the peo- 
ple of New-England ? The moment the enemy set his foot in 
the country, he was like the hunter going to the thicket, to rob the 
tigress of her young. The officers and soldiers of the Revolution 
were farmers and sons of farmers, who owned the soil for which 
they fought ; and many of them, like the veteran Putnam, literally 
left their ploughs in the furrow, to hasten to the field. The attempt 
to conquer such a population, is as chimerical, as it would be to 
march an army down to the sea-shore, in the bay of Fundy, when 
the tide is rolling in seventy feet high, in order to beat back the 
waves with their bucklers. 

But it is time to conclude. When the civil wars of Rome were 
over, Virgil was requested, by the emperor Augustus, to write a 
poem on agriculture, in order to encourage the Italian husbandmen 
to return to the culture of their wasted fields. The farmers in 
Italy, at that time, were mostly tenants at the halves-* but the 
philosophic poet could not help pronouncing even them too happy, 
did they hut know their blessings. After having compared, with 
some attention, the various conditions in which man is found, in the 
principal countries of Europe and in America, I have come to the 
undoubting conclusion, that there is not a population on earth, taken 
as a whole, so highly favored in the substantial blessings of life, as 
the yeomanry of New-England. There are other countries that 
surpass us in wealth and power ; in military strength ; in magnifi- 
cence, and the display of the expensive arts ; — but none, which 
can so justly lay claim to that glorious character, — a free and hap- 
py commonwealth ; — none in which the image of a state, sketched 
by the fancy of the philosophic poet, is so beautifully realized : — 

' What constitutes a state ? 
Not high-raised battlement, and labored mound, 

Thick wall or moated gate; 
Not cities proud, with spires and turrets crowned; 

* Coloni Partiarii. 



1-J- i;\ EBETT'S ORATIONS. 

Not bays and broad-armed porta, 
Where, laughing at the Btorm, proud navies ride; 

Nol Btarred and Bpangled courts, 
Where low-browed baseness wafts perfumes to pride.- 

No! men! high-minded men, 

Men w bo their daties know . 
Hut know their rights;— and, knowing, dare maintain j- 

Prevent \h<- long-aimed blow. 
And crush the tyrant, while thej rend the chain; — 

These constitute a state, 
\nil sovereign law, that state's collected will, 

O'er thrones ami globes elate, 
Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill.' 



EULOGY 

ON LAFAYETTE, DELIVERED IN FANEUIL HALL, AT THE REQUEST 
OF THE YOUNG MEN OF BOSTON, SEPTEMBER 6tH, 1834.* 



When 1 look round upon this vast audience, and reflect upon 
the deep interest manifested by so many intelligent persons in the 
occasion which has called us together, — when I consider the variety 5 
the importance, and singularity of the events which must pass in 
review before us, and the extraordinary character of the man 
whom we commemorate, — his connexion with Europe and Ameri- 
ca, in the most critical periods of their history, — his intercourse in 
both hemispheres with the master spirits of the age, — his auspicious, 
long protracted, and glorious career, alternating, with fearful rapid- 
ity, from one extreme of fortune to the other, — and when I feel 
that I am expected, by the great multitude I have the honor to ad- 

* To avoid the necessity of frequent marginal references, I would observe, that 
the account of Lafayette's first visit to America is chiefly taken from a very inter- 
esting article on that subject, communicated by Mr Sparks to the Boston Daily Ad- 
vertiser, of 26th June, 1S34, from his edition of Washington's Works, now in the 
press. Among the other authorities which I have consulted, are the well-known 
works of Sarrans, the Memoirs of Lafayette and the Constitutional Assembly, by 
Regnault-Warin, Montgaillard's History of France, from the close of the reign of 
Louis XVI, to the year 1S25, and Mr Ticknor's beautiful sketch of the Life of La- 
fayette; originally published in the North American Review. But I owe a more 
particular acknowledgment to Mr Sparks, who not only furnished me with the sheets 
of those parts of the unpublished volumes of Washington's Works, which throw 
li^ht on the military services of Lafayette in the war of the American Revolution, 
but placed in my hands a great mass of original papers, of the highest interest and 



430 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

dress, — the flow it of this metropolis, — to say something not inap- 
propriate to such an occasion, nor wholly beneath the theme, I am 
oppressed with the weight of the duty I am to perform. I know 
ool hoWj in the brief space allotted to me, to take up and dispose 
of a subject so vast and comprehensive. 1 would even now, were 
it possible, retire from the undertaking ; and leave to your own 
hearts, borne upwards with the swelling strains of yonder choir, — 
whose pious and plaintive melody is just dying on the ear, — to 
muse, in expressive silence, the praise of him we celebrate. But 
since this ma) not be, — since the duty devolved upon me must, 
however feebly, be discharged, — let me, like the illustrious subject 
of our contemplation, gather strength from the magnitude of the 
task. Let me calmly trace him through those lofty and perilous 
paths of duty, which he trod with serenity, while empires were 
toppling round him : — and, trampling under foot the arts of the 
rhetorician, as he trampled under foot all the bribes of vanity, ava- 
i nd ambition, and all the delights of life, let me, in the plain- 
of historj and the boldness of truth, not wholly uncongenial 
to the character of the man I would reproduce to your admiration 
and love, discharge as I may, the great duty which you have as- 
signed to me. 

There is, at even sreat era of the history of the world, a lead- 
in- principle, which gives direction to the fortunes of nation s^ and 
the characters of distinguished men. This principle, in our own 

ti , is that of the action and reaction upon each other, of Europe 

and America, for the advancement of free institutions, and the pro- 
motion of rational liberty. Ever since the discovery of America, 

value, relating to the career of Lafayette, and furnished to Mr Sparks by the Gen- 
eral himself, from his nun collections, and the public offices at Paris. These pa- 
I mtain the Correspondence of Lafayette with Washington, from the year I ~~* 

in his death; his Correspondence and Notes of his Conferences with tin- Count de 

Vergei i and othei French ministers; his Correspondence with his family and 

friends, from America and from his prisons in German} ; Notes and Commentaries 
on the most important ini idents of his life; his Correspondence with the Governor 
of Virginia and officers of the army, especial!] during the campaign ol 1781, and 
miscellaneous papers bearing ou the main subject Thej form altogether ample 
materials tor a historj of the life and services of Lafayette ; a work whii Ii do one 
is so well qualified as Mr Sparks to execute, and winch, it i* greatly to be wished, 
he might rx> induced to under) 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 431 

this principle has been in operation, but naturally and necessarily 
with vastly increased energy, since the growth of an intelligent 
population this side the water. For the formation of a man of truly 
great character, it is necessary that he should be endowed with 
qualities to win respect and love ; — that he should be placed in cir- 
cumstances favorable to a powerful action on society ; — and then, 
that with a pure affection, a strong, disinterested, glowing zeal, — a 
holy ambition of philanthropy, — he should devote himself to the 
governing principle of the age. (Such a combination, humanly 
speaking, produces the nearest approach to perfection which the 
sphere of man admits. \ Of such characters the American RevoluA 
tion was more than commonly fertile, for it was the very crisis of 
that action and reaction, which is the vocation of the age. Such/ 
a character was Washington ; such was Lafayette. 

Lafayette was born at Chavaniac, in the ancient province of 
Auvergne, in France, on the sixth day of September, 1757, seven- 
ty-seven years ago this day. His family was one of the most an- 
cient in the country, and of the highest rank in the French nobility. 
As far back as the fifteenth century, one of his ancestors, a mar- 
shall of France, was distinguished for his military achievements ; — 
his uncle fell in the wars of Italy, in the middle of the last centu- 
ry ; — and his father lost his life in the seven years' war, at the bat- 
tle of Minden. His mother died soon after, and he was thus left 
an orphan, at an early age, the heir of an immense estate, and ex- 
posed to all the dangers incident to youth, rank, and fortune, in the 
gayest and most luxurious city on earth, at the period of its great- 
est corruption. He escaped unhurt. Having completed the usual 
academical course, at the college of Duplessis in Paris, he married, 
at the age of sixteen, the daughter of the Duke d'Ayen, of the 
family of Noailles, somewhat younger than himself; — and at all 
times the noble encourager of his virtues, — the heroic partner of 
his sufferings, — the worthy sharer of his great name and of his 
honorable grave. 

The family to which he thus became allied, was then, and for 
fifty years had been, in the highest favor at the French court. 
Himself the youthful heir of one of the oldest and richest houses 
in France, the path of advancement was open before him. He was 
offered a brilliant place in the royal household. At an age and 



432 I \ I. RETT'S ORATIONS. 

in a situation most likely to be caughl by the attraction, he declined 
the proffered distinction, impatient of the attendance at court which 
il required. He felt, from his earliest, years, that he was ool horn 
to loiter in an ante-chamber. The sentiment of liberty w as already 
awakened in his bosom. Having, while yet at college, been re- 
quired, as an exercise in composition, to describe the well-trained 
charger, obedient even to the shadow of the whip; he represented 
the noble animal, on the contrary, as rearing at the si^ht of it. and 
throwing his rider. With this feeling, the profession of arms was, 
of course, the most congenial to him; and was. in fact, with the 
exception of that of courtier, the only one open to a young French 
nobleman before the Revolution. 

In the summer of !"(>. and just after the American declaration 
of independence. Lafayette was stationed at Metz, a garrisoned 
town on the road from Paris to the German frontier, with the regi- 
ment to which he was attached, as a captain of dragoons, not then 
nineteen years of age. The duke of Gloucester, the brother of 
the king of England, happened to he on a visit to Metz. and a 
dinner was given to him. by the commandant of the garrison. 
Lafayette was invited, with other officers, to the entertainment. 
Despatches had just been received by the duke, from England, 
relating to American affairs, — the resistance of the colonists, and 
the strong measures adopted by the ministers to crush the re- 
bellion. Anion-' the details stated by the duke of Gloucester, was 
the extraordinary fact, that these remote, scattered, and unprotect- 
ed settlers of the wilderness had solemnly declared themselves mi 
independent people. 'That word decided the fortunes of the en- 
thusiastic listener; and not more distinctly was the great declara- 
tion a charter of political liberty to the rising States, than it was a 
commission to their youthful champion to devote his life to the sa- 

cn d can i . 

The details which he heard were new to him. The American 
contest wa^ known to him before, but as a rebellion, — a tumultuary 
affair in a remote transatlantic colony, lie now. with a prompt- 
if perception which, even at this distance of time, strikes us 
as little less than miraculous, addressed a multitude of inquiries to 
the dul i G ester on the subject of the contest. His imagi- 
nation was kindled at the idea of a civilized people struggle 



433 

EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 



political liberty. His heart was warmed with the possibility of 
Swing his sword in a good cause. Before he left the table, his 
course was mentally resolved on ; and the brother of the king of 
England, (unconsciously, no doubt), had the singular fortune to 
enlfst, from the French court and the French army, this pliant and 
fortunate champion in the then unpromising cause of the Colonial 

Con "res-. . . , 

He immediately repaired to Paris, to make further inquiries and 
arrangements, toward the execution of his great plan He con- 
fided it to two young friends, officers like himself, the Count Segur 
and Viscount de Noailles, and proposed to them to join him. Ihey 
shared his enthusiasm, and determined to accompany him, but on 
consulting their families, they were refused permission. But they 
faithfully kept Lafayette's secret. Happily, shall I say, he was an 
orphan,-independent of control, and master of his own fortune, 
amounting to near forty thousand dollars per annum. 

He next opened his heart to the Count de Broghe, a marshall 
in the French army. To the experienced warrior, accustomed to 
the regular campaigns of European service, the project seemed 
rash and quixotic, and one that he could not countenance La- 
fayette begged the count at least not to betray him :— as he was 
resolved, (notwithstanding his disapproval of the project), to go to 
America This the count promised, adding, however, < I saw your 
uncle fall in Italy, and I witnessed your father's death, at the bat- 
tle of Minden, and I will not be accessary to the ruin of the only 
remaining branch of the family.' He then used all the powers of 
argument wmch his age and experience suggested to him, to dis- 
suade Lafayette from the enterprise, but in vain. Finding his de- 
termination unalterable, he made him acquainted with the Baron 
de Kalb, who,— the count knew,— was about to embark for Amer- 
ica ;— an officer of experience and merit, who, as is well known, 
fell at the battle of Camden. 

The Baron de Kalb introduced Lafayette to Silas Deane, then 
aaent of the United States in France, who explained to him the 
smte of affairs in America, and encouraged him in his project. 
Deane was but imperfectly acquainted with the French language, 
and of manners somewhat repulsive. A less enthusiastic temper 
than that of Lafayette might have been somewhat chilled by the 
54 



43 1 EVERETT'S OB LTIONS. 

style of his intercourse. He had, as yet, doI been acknowledged , 
in any public capacit) : and was besel bj the spies of tfce British 
ambassador. For these reasons, it was judged expedienl thai the 
visit oi Lafayette should not be repeated, and their further nego- 
tiations were c( indue led through the intervention of TVTr Carmichael, 
an Vmerican gentleman, at that time in Paris. Tlie arrangement 

was at length concluded, in virtue of w hie h. I )eane took upon him- 
self, without authority, but by a happy exercise of discretion, to 
engage Lafayette to inter the American service, with the rank of 
Major General. A vessel was about to be de-patched with arms 
and other supplies for the American army, and in this vessel it was 
settled that he should take passagi . 

\t this juncture, the news readied France, of the evacuation of 
N ^ ork, the loss of Fori Washington, the calamitous retreat 
through New Jersey, and the other disasters of the campaign of 
1"(>. The friends of America in France were in despair. The 
tidings, had in themselves, were greatly exaggerated in the British 
gazettes. The plan of sending an armed vessel with munitions, 
w as abandoned. The cause, alw av s doubtful, was now pronounced 
d< sperate; and Lafayette was urged by all who were privy to his 
project, to give up an enterprise so wild and hop) less. Even our 
commissioners, (for Deane had been joined !>\ Dr Franklin and 
Arthur Lee), told him they could not in conscience urge him to 

proceed. His answer was, • \lv zeal and love of liberty have per- 
haps hitherto been the pr< vailing motive with me, but now 1 see a 
chance of usefulness which I had not anticipated. These supplies 
I know are greatly wanted by Congress. 1 have monc\ ; i will 
purchase a vessel to convey them to America ; and in this ve^icl, 
ne. companions and myself will take passaj i .' 

Yes. fellow citizens] that I may repeal an exclamation, uttered 

ten veal- ago, by him who has now the honor to address von. in 

the presence of an immense multitude, who welcomed ' the .Nation's 
Guest ' to the academic shades of Harvard, and by them receiv< d 
with acclamations of approval and tear- of gratitude; — w hen he 

was told by our commissioners, 'that they did not possess the 

mean- nor the credit to provide a single vessel in all the ports of 

France,' then, exclaimed the gallant and generous youth, •! will 

provide inv own;' and it is a literal fact, thai when our beloved 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 435 

country was too poor to offer him so much as a passage to her 
shores, he left, in his tender youth, the bosom of home, of happi 
ness, of wealth, and of rank, to plunge in the dust and blood of our 
inauspicious struggle. 

In pursuance of the generous purpose thus conceived, the secre- 
tary of the Count de Broglie was employed by Lafayette, to pur- 
chase and fit out a vessel at Bordeaux ; and while these prepara- 
tions were in train, with a view of averting suspicion from his 
movements, and passing the tedious interval of delay, he made a 
visit with a relative, to his kinsman, the Marquis de Noailles, then 
the French ambassador in London. During their stay in Great 
Britain, they were treated with kindness by the king and persons 
of rank ; but having, after a lapse of three weeks, learned that his 
vessel was ready at Bordeaux, Lafayette suddenly returned to 
France. This visit was of service to the youthful adventurer, in 
furnishing him an opportunity to improve himself in the Eng- 
lish language: but a nice sense of honor forbade him to make 
use of the opportunity which it afforded, for obtaining mil- 
itary information, that could be of utility to the American army. 
So far did he carry this scruple, that he declined visiting the naval 
establishment at Portsmouth. 

On his return to France, he did not even visit Paris ; but after 
three days passed at Passy, the residence of Dr Franklin, he hast- 
ened to Bordeaux. Arrived at this place, he found that his vessel 
was not yet ready ; and had the still greater mortification to learn that 
the spies of the British ambassador had penetrated his designs, and 
made them known to the family of Lafayette, and to the king, from 
whom an order for his arrest was daily expected. Unprepared as 
bis ship was., he instantly sailed in her to Passage, the nearest port 
in Spain, where he proposed to wait for the vessel's papers. Scarce- 
ly had he arrived in that harbor, when he was encountered by two 
officers, with letters from his family, and from the ministers, and a 
i ■( >val order, directing him to join his father-in-law at Marseilles. The 
letters from the ministers reprimanded him for violating his oath of 
allegiance and failing in his duty to his king. Lafayette, in some of his 
letters to his friends about court, replied to this remark, that the min- 
isters might chicle him with failing in his duty to the king when they/ 
learned to discharge theirs to the people. His family censured him 



436 I \ I.RETT'S ORATIONS. 

for his desertion of his domestic duties; — but his heroic wife, in- 
stead of joining in the reproach, tbaird hj s enthusiasm, an d encour- 
a ged his enterprise. He was obliged to return with the officers to 
I Bordeaux, and report himself to the commandant. While there, and 
engaged in communicating with his family and the court, in explana- 
tion and defence of his conduct, he learned from a friend at Paris, that 
a positive prohibition of his departure ini-lu he expected from the 
kiiiL r . No farther time was to be lost, and no middle course pur- 
sued, lie feigned a willingness to yield to the wishes of his fami- 
ly, and started as tin- Marseilles, with one of the officers who was 
to accompany him to America. Scarcely had they left the city of 
Bordeaux, w hen he assumed the <lr< ss of a courier, mounted a horse 
and rode forward to procure relays. They soon quitted the road 
to Marseilles, and struck into that which leads to Spain. On 
reaching Bayonne, they were detained two or three hour-. A\ hile 
ompanion of Lafayette was employed in some important com- 
mission in the city, he himself lay on the straw in the stable. At 
St Jean de Luz, he was recognized by the daughter of the pi 
who kept the posl house ; — she had observed him a few days be- 
fore, as he passed from Spain to Bordeaux. Perceiving that he 
was di-co\ red, and not daring to -peak to her. he made her a sig- 
nal to keep sill nee. She complied w itli the intimation : and when. 
shortly after he had passed on. hi- pursuers came up, she gave them 
an answer which baffled their penetration, and enable Lafayette to 
• into Spain. lie was instantly on hoard his ship and at sea, 
with eleven officers in his train. 

It would take me beyond the limits of the occasion, to repeat 
the various casualties and exposures of his passage, which lasted 
sixty days. His vessel bad cleared out for the Wesl Indies; but 
Lafayette directed the captain to steer for the United State-, which, 
especially as he had a large pecuniar) adventure of hi- own on 
I, he declined doing. B) threat- to remove him from hi- com- 
mand, and promises to indemnify him for the loss ol his property, 
should they be captured, Lafayette prevailed upon the captain to 
ste< r hi- course for tin American coast, where at last they happily 
arrived, having narrowly escaped two British v< which 

were cruising in thatquarter. They made the coast n< ai I • town. 
South Carolina. It was late in the day before they could approach 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 437 

so near land as to leave the vessel. Anxious to tread the Ameri- 
can soil, Lafayette, with some of his fellow officers, entered the 
ship's boat, and were rowed at nightfall to shore. A distant light 
guided them in their landing and advance into the country. Ar- 
riving near the house from which the light proceeded, an alarm 
was given by the watch-dogs, and they were mistaken by those 
within for a marauding party from the enemy's vessels, hovering on 
the coast. The Baron de Kalb, however, had a good knowledge 
of the English language, acquired on a previous visit to America, 
and was soon able to make known who they were and what was 
their errand. On this, they were, of course, readily admitted, and 
cordially welcomed. The house in which they found themselves, 
was that of Major Huger, a citizen of worth, hospitality, and pa- 
triotism, by whom every good office was performed to the adventu- 
rous strangers. He provided the next day the means of conveying 
Lafayette and his companions to Charleston, where they were re- 
ceived with enthusiasm by the magistrates and the people. 

As soon as possible, they proceeded by land to Philadelphia. 
On his arrival there, with the eagerness of a youth anxious to be 
employed upon his errand, he sent his letters to our townsman, Mr 
Lovell, chairman of the committee of foreign relations. He called 
the next day at the hall of Congress, and asked to see this gentle- 
man. Mr Lovell came out to him, — stated that so many foreign- 
ers offered themselves for employment in the American army, that 
Congress was greatly embarrassed to find them commands, — that 
the finances of the country required the most rigid economy, — and 
that he feared, in the present case, there was little hope of success. 
Lafayette perceived that the worthy chairman had made up his re- 
port, without looking at the papers ; — he explained to him, that his 
application, if granted, would lay no burden upon the finances of 
Congress, and addressed a letter to the President, in which he ex- 
pressed a wish to enter the American army, on the condition of serving 
without pay or emolument, and on the footing of a volunteer. These 
conditions removed the chief obstacles alluded to, in reference to 
the appointment of foreign officers ; — the letters brought by La- 
fayette made known to Congress his high connexions, and his large 
means of usefulness, and without an hour's delay he received from 
them a commission of Major General in the American army, a 
month before he was twenty years of age. 



t.'iS EVERETT'S ORATION-. 

A month before li<' is twenty years of age, lie is thought worthy 
by that august body, the revolutionary Congress, to be placed in 
the highest rank of those, to whom the conduct of their arms was 
entrusted id this hour of their extremest peril. What a commence- 
ment of life! None of the golden hour- of youth wasted on its 
worthless, hut tempting vanities : — none of those precious opportu- 
nities are losl for him. which, once lost, neither goldj nor tears, nor 
blood can buy hack, and which, for the mass of men, are lost, irre- 
trievably, and forever! None of the joyous days of youthful vigor 
exhausted even in the praiseworthy butcheerless vigils with which, 
in the presenl artificial state of society, it is too often the lot of ad- 
vancing merit to work it- way toilsomely up the steeps of useful- 
uhI fame! It pleased a gracious Providence, in disposing 
the strange and various agency by which the American indepen- 
dence was to he established, to place in the company of its defend- 
er- a youthful champion from the highest circle of the gayest court 
of Europe. I>\ the side of Washington from his broad plantations, 
— of Greene, from his forge. — of Stark, from his almost pathless 
forests and granite hills. — of Putnam, from his humble farm, there 
is a place, at tin' war council of the Revolution, for a young no- 
bleman from France, lie is raised at once, above the feverish 
appetite for advancement, — the pest of affairs, — for he i- horn to 
tin' highest station society can he-tow. He come- from the bosom 
of the domestic endearments, with which he has surrounded him- 
self, he fore an\ of die accursed poi-on- of pleasure have heen poured 
into hi- heart : ami youth as he i-. he brings the chaste and manly 
virtues of the husband and the father to the virtuous cause which 
he ha- embraced. The possessor of an immense estate, he is be- 
yond the reai d i of mercenary motives ; and i- enabled even to con- 
fer favors on the Congress whose confidence he receives. 

I Jut though hi- enterprise is one which requires, for it- very con- 
ception, a rare enthusiasm; — although, considering hi- position at 
home, he must he all hut a madman to persevere in such an adven- 
ture; yet the nature of the cause to which he con-cerate- Ifun-elf. 
and of the duties which he undertake- to perforin, implies a gravi- 

iv of character, and sound judgment, belonging to mature years, 
and long experience; and that gravity and good judgment, young 
and inexperii act d as he is, be poss< sses id an eminent degree. To 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 439 

succeed in the undertaking, he seems to need qualities of character 
not merely different from those which alone could prompt him to 
embark in it: but he must have the opposite and contradictory 
qualities. He must be cool, prudent, and considerate, at the very 
moment that he enters a career, from which every cool, prudent, 
and considerate man would have dissuaded him ; — and arduous as 
it is, he enters it, without preparation or training. 

But let him enter it. the noble and fortunate youth ; let him en- 
ter it, without preparation or training ! Great as the work is, and 
completely as he is to succeed in it, it is itself but a work of prep- 
aration. This is not yet the province of duty assigned him. He 
comes without training, for this is the school in which he is to be 
trained. He comes unprepared, because he comes to a great prep- 
aration of liberty. Destined, when, with full success and spotless 
honor, he shall have gone through the American Revolution, to take 
the lead in a mighty work of political reform in his native land. — 
he comes, in his youth, to the great monitorial school of Freedom; 
— to imbibe its holy doctrines from an authentic source, before his 
heart is hardened and his mind perverted ; to catch its pure spirit, 
— living and uncorrupted, — from the lips of a pure master! 

Before that master he is yet to appear. The youthful adventu- 
rer has a test of character at hand more severe than any to which 
he has yet been subjected. He has stood from his youth before 
princes and kings, and felt that his clay is as good as theirs. 
But he has yet to stand before that face, where, more than ever 
yet in the face of mere man, the awful majesty of virtue abode, in 
visible personation : the serene but melancholy countenance which 
now looks down upon us from that canvass, which no smile of light- 
hearted gladness illuminated, from the commencement to the close 
of his country's struggle. Washington was at head-quarters, when 
Lafayette reached Philadelphia, but he was daily expected in the 
city. The introduction of the youthful stranger to the man, on 
whom his career depended, was therefore delayed a few days. It 
took place in a manner peculiarly marked with the circumspection 
of Washington, at a dinner party, where Lafavette was one among 
several guests of consideration. Washington was not uninformed 
of the circumstances connected with his arrival in the country. 
He knew what benefits it promised the cause, if his character and 



440 I. VI. RETT'S ORATIONS. 

talents were adapted to the course he had so boldly struck out ; — 
and he knew, also, how much it was to be feared, that the very 
qualities which had prompted him to embark in it, would make 
him a useless and even a dangerous auxiliary. We may well sup- 
pose, that the piercing eye of the Father of his Country was not 
idle during the repast. But that searching glance, before which 
pretence or fraud never stood undetected, was completely satisfied. 
When thej were about to separate. Washington took Lafayette 
aside, — spoke to him with kindness, — paid a just tribute to the 
noble spirit which he had shown, and the sacrifices he had made in 
the American cause; invited him to make the head-quarters of the 
armj his home, and to regard himself, at all times, as one of the 
family of the commander-in-chief. 

Such was the reception given to Lafayette, by the most saga- 
cious and observant of men ; and the personal acquaintance thus 
commenced, ripened into an intimacy, a confidence, and an affec- 
tion without bounds, and never for one moment interrupted. If 
there lived a man whom Washington loved.it was Lafayette. The 
proof- of this are not wanted by those who have read the history 
of the Revolution, — but the private correspondence of these two 
great men. hitherto unpublished, discloses the full extent of the 
mutual regard ;\\\(\ affection which united them, [t not only shows 
that Washington entertained the highest opinion of the military 
talent, the personal probity, and the general prudence and energy 
of Lafayette, but thai he regarded him with the tenderness of a 
father: and found in the affection which Lafayette bore to him in 
return, one of the greatest comforts and blessings of his own life. 
Whenever the correspondence of Washington and Lafayette shall 
be published, the publication will do, what perhaps nothin 
can, raise them both in the esteem \nd admiration of mankind. 

On the 31st of July. 1777, Lafayette received, by a resolution 
of Congress, his commission as a Major General in the American 
army. .Not having at first a separate command, he attached him- 
self to the army of the commander-in-chief, as a volunteer. On 
the I 1th of the following September, he was present at the unfor- 
tunate battle ol vine. He there plunged, with a rashness, 
pardonable in a ver) youthful commander, into the hottest ol the 
battle, • sposed himself to all its dangers, and exhibited a conspicu- 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 441 

ous example of coolness and courage. When the troops began to 
retreat in disorder, he threw himself from his horse, entered the 
ranks, and endeavored to rally them. While thus employed, he was 
shot by a musket ball through the leg. The wound was not per- 
ceived by himself, till he was told by his aid that the blood was 
running from his boot. He fell in with a surgeon, who placed a 
slight bandage on his limb, with which he rode to Chester. Re- 
gardless of his situation, he thought only of rallying the troops, who 
were retreating in disorder through the village ; and it was not till 
this duty was performed, that the wound was dressed. It was two 
months before it was sufficiently healed to enable him to rejoin the 
army. This was the first battle in which he was ever engaged, 
and such was his entrance into the active service of America. 

It would obviously be impossible to do more than glance at the 
military services of Lafayette during the revolutionary war, but it 
seems to belong to a proper treatment of the subject, that they 
should not be wholly omitted. 

In the winter of 1778, he was designated to the command of 
an expedition into Canada, a project formed without consulting 
Washington, by the members of Congress and the cabal in the 
army, opposed to the commander-in-chief. Lafayette was placed 
at the head of it, partly, no doubt, with a view of detaching him 
from the support, and thereby impairing the influence of Washing- 
ton. But his veneration for Washington, his good feeling, his 
sound military judgment, and, above all, his correct perception of 
the character of the great man aimed at, enabled him to escape 
the snare. On repairing to Albany, he found no preparations made 
to carry the expedition into effect. He perceived its impractica- 
bility, and it was abandoned. His retreat at Barren-Hill, from a 
very critical and dangerous situation, into which he was thrown by 
the abandonment of their post on the part of a detachment of mili- 
tia stationed to protect his position, received the highest commen- 
dations of Washington. On General Lee's declining the command 
of the advance of the army at Monmouth, it was given to Lafayette. 
Lee, perceiving the importance of the command, and the unfavor- 
able appearance which his waiver of it might wear, prevailed with 
great difficulty, on Lafayette, the day before the battle, to allow 
him to assume it. The conduct of Lafayette on that important 
55 



442 El EKETT'S ORATIONS. 

day was marked with bravery and skill. On the very daj that 
the British effected their entrance into Nev ^ ork 3 the French fleet, 
under the ('«>unt d'Estaing, appeared in the American waters. 
Rhode Island having been fixed upon, as the theatre of operations, 
Lafayette was detached with two brigades, to join the armj under 
Genera] Sullivan. During all the perilous incidents of this critical 
and unsuccessful campaign, the most important services were ren- 
dered by Lafayette. He exerted the happiest influence in restor- 
ing harmony between the officers and soldiers of the French and 
American armies, which had been seriously interrupted, in conse- 
quence of the unfortunate issue of the expedition. This was of 
infinite importance to the cause, as a permanent disgust on the part 
of the French troop-, in this the first expedition sent out in virtue 
of the alliance, might have effectually damped the further efforts 
of France. His services on the occasion were acknowledged by 
express resolutions ol Congress. 

France being now in a state of declared hostility against Eng- 
land, and Lafayette being still an officer in the French army, he 
deemed it his duty, at the close of the campaign, to return to his 
native country, and place himself at the disposal of his government. 

I [e united w ith this obji cl thai of exerting his influence in favoi 
of America, h\ bis personal conference- with the French ministry. 
Id accordingly applied to Congressfor a furlough, which on the 
particular recommendation of General Washington was granted. 
This permission was accompanied by resolution- expressing, in 
flattering terms, the sense which was entertained bj Congress, of 
the importance of bis services, and by a letter recommending him 
to the good offices of the American minister in France. At the 
same time also, Congress ordered that a sword should be presented 
to him, adorned with emblematic devices, appropriate to it- object. 

Lafayette embarked for Trance, at Boston, in January. \~1\K 
on hoard an American frigate. Jusl before arriving on the coasts 
of France, he happirj discovered and assisted in subduing a muti- 
ny on the part of some British prisoners of war, whom he had been 

induced tO admit a- a portion of the crew of the frigate, from his 
av< i ion to impressment, which must otherwise have heen resorted 
tO, hi okI. r tn make up the ship's Complement of nun. He wa- 
uow twenty-two years of age, and returned, alter two years ol ab- 
sence, marked with honorable -car-, and signalized hy the thank- 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 443 

of Congress, the admiration of America, and the friendship of 
Washington. He was received with enthusiasm by the people, 
and even at court. As he had left the country in disobedience to 
a royal mandate, etiquette demanded that he should for a few days 
be required to keep his house, and to see no persons but the mem- 
bers of his family. This, however, embraced within its circle 
nearly every person of distinction about the court. His name had 
already been introduced into several dramatic performances, and 
hailed with acclamations in the theatres ; and a beautiful apostrophe 
to him in one of these performances, was copied by the queen, and 
long preserved in her hand-writing, by her confidential attendant, 
Madame Campan. On a journey to one of his estates in the south 
of France, the whole population came out to meet him, and the 
fetes of the city of Orleans, in honor of his return, were prolonged 
for a week. 

The entire effect of the enthusiasm of which he was thus the 
object, was turned by Lafayette to the advantage of America. 
He was the confidential adviser of Dr Franklin ; he was in un- 
broken correspondence with Washington, and he was sure to be 
approached by every American arriving in France, and by every 
European repairing to America. A Major General in her armies, 
he was clothed with an official right to interfere in her cause ; and 
his country being now at war with England, no reasons of state 
interposed to check his activity. He was, as a French officer, 
attached to the staff of the Marshall Vaux, at that time command- 
er-in-chief of the French army. In this capacity, having direct 
access to the court, the personal and warmly-devoted friend of the 
Count de Vergennes, and the popular favorite, he did for America 
what no other man could have done, and rendered services to the 
cause not yet sufficiently appreciated, — and worthy a moment's 
reflection. 

The alliance with France was the great turning point in the for- 
tunes of the Revolution. I do not, of course, say, that without it, 
our independence could not have been established. Had this 
failed, other means would, no doubt, in some wholly different train 
of affairs, have been disclosed. I would not say of any thing, not 
even of the character of Washington, that without it, the country 
could not have been carried through the war. But, in looking 



444 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

hark upon the history of the tidies, I cannot now perceive that in 
the series of events by which the independence of the United 
Slates was achieved, the alliance with Prance could have been 
dispensed with. Her recognition of our independence inspirited 
our own councils and disheartened England. The loans of money 
and military supplies derived from France, were a vital resource^ 

for which 1 know not what Substitute could have been found; — 
and. finally, the cooperation of her fleets and armies, involving, as 
it did eventually, thai of the Spanish force-, brought down upon 
the British mini-try a burden which they could not hear, and com- 
pelled them to abandon the struggle. 

At the vime time, the greatest dilliculties opposed themselves to 
the practical development of the benefits of the treaty of alliance. 
In the firsl place, it required of an old European monarchy to coun- 
tenance a colonial revolt. France had colonic-. Spain, the Kin- 
dred sovereignty, had a colonial world in America, where the for- 
midable and all but successful revolt of Tupac-Amaru was alreadj 
in secrel preparation. It was the last moment, which France or 
Spain would have voluntarily chosen, to sanction an example of 
transatlantic independence. The finances of fiance were any 
thing but prosperous, and she had to support, unaided, the expense 
Of the fleets and armies which she sent to our assistance. G 
difficulties, it was supposed, would attend the cooperation of a 
French army with American forces on land. Congress was jeal- 
ous of the introduction of a foreign soldiery into the interior of the 
country, and Washington himself gave but a reluctant consenl to 
the measure. Considerable discontent bad arisen in connexion 
with Count d'Estaing's movements in Rhode Island, which. — had 
it not been allayed by the prudent and effectual mediation of La- 
fayette, — would, as has In en alreadj stated, probably have pre- 
vented a French army from being sent over to the I nited State-. 

Such Were the feelings, on both side- of the ocean, whin Lafayette 

went back to France, in I"!): and during the whole of that 
he exerted himself unceasingly, in his correspondence and confer- 
ences with the French ministry, to induce them to -end out an ar- 
my. The difficulties to be ov< rcome were all but insurmountable, 
acting, as he was, not only without the instructions, but against 
ense of Congress, and scarce!) -auctioned l>_\ Washington. He, 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 445 

however, knew that success would attend the measure. He had 
that interior conviction, which no argument or authority can sub- 
due, that the proposed expedition was practicable and expedient, 
and he succeeded in imparting his enthusiasm to the ministers. He 
knew that the anticipated difficulties could be overcome. He had 
proved, in his own experience, that cooperation was practicable. 
Military subordination made it impossible to put him, a young man 
of twenty-two, holding in the king's army only the commission of 
a subaltern, in the command of a large force ; but he relied, with 
a just confidence, on the services which his standing in America, 
and his possession of the confidence of Washington would enable 
him to render. He accordingly pursued the object with an ardor, 
an industry, and an adroitness, which nothing could surpass. When 
his correspondence with the French ministers, particularly the 
Count de Vergennes, shall be published, it will appear that it was 
mainly the personal efforts and personal influence of Lafayette, — 
idol of the French people as he had made himself, — which caused 
the army of Rochambeau to be sent to America. It was pleas- 
antly remarked by the old Count de Maurepas, who, at the age of 
seventy-nine, still stood at the head of the French ministry, that 
' it was fortunate for the king, that Lafayette did not take it into 
his head to strip Versailles of its furniture to send to his dear Araer-, 
icans ; — as his Majesty would have been unable to refuse it.' In 
addition to his efforts to obtain the army of Rochambeau, Lafayette i 
was actively employed, during the year 1779, in conjunction with ) 
our ministers, in procuring a large pecuniary subsidy for the United/' 
States. 

Having thus contributed to the accomplishment of these great 
objects, he returned to America, in the spring of 1780. He land- 
ed at Boston, where, though nothing was as yet known of the all- 
important services he had rendered to us, he was received with 
every mark of attachment and admiration. He immediately re- 
paired to the head-quarters of the army ; but soon left them to 
arrange with Count Rochambeau the interview between him and 
the commander-in-chief, in which the future operations of the cam- 
paign were concerted, at which also he was present. He was at 
West Point, at the period of the ever memorable scene of the 
treachery of Arnold. The following winter he marched at the 



446 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

head of his division, to Portsmouth, in Virginia, to cooperate in an 
attack on the British forces, by the combined French and Ameri- 
can troops. This plan failed) in consequence of the reverses ex- 
perienced by the French squadron under Destouches. On his 
march backward to the north. Lafayette received a courier from 
Washington, informing bira of the concentration of the troops un- 
der Lord Cornwallis, Phillips, and Arnold, in Virginia, and direct- 
ing him to watch their movements, and -prevent this great State, 
whose folium- involved that of the whole southern country, from 
falling into their hands. This order found him at the bead of 
Elk, in Maryland, tie instantly put in train the requisite meas- 
ures of preparation. His scanty force was iii a >tale of perfect 
destitution. In all his army, there was not a pair of shoes fit for 
service. But the love and confidence which the country bore him, 
supplied the place of credit; and be was able, in bis own name, to 
raise a loan in Baltimore, sufficient to supply the most urgent wants 
of his [ittle command. Thus furnished, he hastened into Virginia, 
and during the whole summer of 1781, be conducted the campaign 
with a vigor, discretion, and success, which saved the State of S ir- 
ginia, and proved himself to be endowed with the highest qualities 
of generalship. AN hile Lord Cornwallis. to whom he was opposed, 
— a person not less eminent for talent and experience than for 
rank and political influence, — was boasting, in derision of his youth- 
ful adversary, thai 'the hoy should not escape him," the ho\ was 
preparing a pit, into which bis lordship plunged, with all his forces. 
Alv limits do not allow me to sketch the history of this greal 
campaign, nor even its final glorious consummation, the closing 
scene of the war. Bui 1 may with propriety pause to say, that it 
evinced, on the part of our venerable Washington, now at length 
favored with an opportunit) of acting with ample means on a broad 
scale, a power of combination and a reach of mind, with a prompt- 
itude and vigor of execution which, exhibited at the head of mighty 
arinii -. gave to Napoleon hi- reputation, a- the greatesl captain of 
the age. I cannot hut think, that in the manoeuvres, by which 
Lord Cornwallis was detained in Virginia : — by which Sir Henry 
Clinton was persuaded, in New York, that a siege of that <it\ was 
object of Washington ; — by which the French forces were 
it up from Rhode Island; — the armii ^\ Washington and 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 447 

Rochambeau moved, by a forced march across the country, to 
Yorktown, at the moment that the French squadron from Newport, 
under the Count de Barras, and the great fleet under the Count de 
Grasse, effected their junction in the Chesapeake, — there is dis- 
played as much generalship, as in any series of movements in the 
wars of the last thirty years. The operations of Lafayette in Vir- 
ginia, in the preceding summer, were the basis of them all ; as his 
untiring efforts in France the preceding season, had mainly occa- 
sioned the despatch of the army of Count Rochambeau, without 
which, the great exploit at Yorktown, could not have been 
achieved. 

And who, that has a sense for all that is beautiful in military 
display, grand and eventful in political combinations, and auspicious 
to the cause of liberty, — but must linger a moment on the plain 
of Yorktown! Before you, stretches the broad expanse of York 
river, an arm of Chesapeake bay. Beyond it, to the north, 
the British general has left a force at Gloucester point, for his sup- 
port, should he be compelled to retreat across the river ; and there 
the Duke de Lauzun, with his legion united with the Virginia mi- 
litia, effectually encloses the British force within their lines. The 
intervening expanse of water is covered with the British vessels of 
war. But it is around the lines of Yorktown, that the interest of 
the scene is concentrated. Above the town, are stationed the 
French ; below, the Americans. The royal regiments of Deux 
Fonts, of Touraine, and Saintonge, on the one side, and the troops 
of Pennsylvania and Virginia, of New-Jersey and New-England, 
on the other. The Marquis de St Simon commanded on the extreme 
left, and General Lincoln on the extreme right. Before the for- 
mer, we behold the position of the two Viomenils, and near the 
latter, the post of Lafayette. At the point of junction between 
the two lines, the head-quarters of Count Rochambeau and those 
of Washington are placed, in harmony of council and of action, 
side by side. Two redoubts are to be carried. To excite the gen- 
erous emulation of the combined forces, one is committed to the 
French, and the other to the Americans. Lafayette, with Hamil- 
ton at his side, commands the latter, and both redoubts are carried 
at the point of the bayonet. Cornwallis attempts, but without 
success, to escape. He is reduced, after a siege of thirteen days, 



11- KVKItKTTS ORATIONS. 

to enter into capitulation : and the lasl British army of the revo- 
lutionary war surrenders to the united forces of America and 
France. 

\i the close of the campaign, to the successful issue of which 
he had so essentially contributed, Lafayette again asked theperrruV 
sioii of Congress to return to France. Well might thej permit 
him, (or be went to rouse France and Spain, with all their fleets, 
armies, and treasures, to strike a last and an overo helming blo\a . \ 
committee of Congress, of which Charles Carroll was chairman, 
and James Madison was a member, reported a series of resolutions 
of the mosl honorable character, which were adopted by that bodj . 
They directed all the ministers of the United Stales, in Europe, to 
confer and correspond with Lafayette ; they invited him to com - 
pond with Congress, and they recommended him, in the most af- 
fectionate terms, to the especial favor of his sovereign. 

He returned to bis Dative country, with these new laurels and 
new titles to admiration, and France rose up as one man to receive 
him. His welcome, before enthusiastic, was now rapturous; it 
was prompted before by admiration of a chivalrous adventure, but 
the national pride and patriotic spirit of Frenchmen were now 
aroused. The heavy reproach of the seven j ear-' war was rolled 
away; and the stains of Quebec washed white at Sforktown. 
The government, as well as the people of France, was elated 
at the success of the campaign ; — all doubts as to the possibility 
of a combined action were removed; and to Lafayette, as the 
prime mover of the enterprise, proportionate credit was justlj 
given for his forecasl ami sagacity. He could now ask for nothing 
that was deemed extravaganl : or. however extravagant, he could 
ask for nothing which could he refused. The enthusiasm caught 
from France to Spain. The Castilian coldness was melted ; and 
although the mountains of Peru were bristling with the bayonets oi 
the last <>f the [ncas, king Charles 111 could not resist the tempta- 
tion of humbling Gr< it Britain, and resolved at Last, that Spain and 

the Indie- should gO, with all their resources, lor the Cur.' n 53. \ 

mighty plan of campaign was resolved on. An expedition such as 

Europe ha- rarely witnessed, was projected. The old armada 

-. eined almost to rise from the depth- of the ocean, in mightily 
cnented array, to avenge the ancient di $t< rs ol Spain. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 449 

The preparations commenced at Cadiz. Count d'Estaing, as gen- 
eralissimo, with sixty vessels of the line and smaller ships in pro- 
portion, with twenty-four thousand troops, was to make a descent 
on Jamaica, and thence strike at New- York. Lafayette was the 
first at the rendezvous : he had already proceeded with eight thou- 
sand men from Brest to Cadiz. He was placed at the head of the 
staff of the combined armies, and after New- York had fallen, was 
to have moved with his division into Canada. But these magnifi- 
cent and formidable preparations effected their object at a cheaper 
cost than that of rivers of blood. The British government learned 
wisdom, before it was too late ; — and the peace was concluded. 
It was the wish of Lafayette to bear in person the joyous tidings 
to America. Just as he was about stepping on board a frigate for 
that purpose, he returned to Madrid, to render an important ser- 
vice to our minister there. But his despatches were sent by the 
frigate, and conveyed to Congress the first intelligence of the 
peace. 

In the course of the following year, he yielded to the invitation 
of Washington and his other friends, and revisited America. He 
was received with acclamations of joy and gratitude from one end 
of the country to the other ; but nowhere with a more cordial 
welcome than in this ancient metropolis. On the 19th of October, 
1784, in the hall in which we are now assembled to pay the last 
tribute to his memory, surrounded by his fellow soldiers, by the 
authorities of the commonwealth, the magistracy of the town, and 
the grateful and admiring citizens of Boston, he celebrated the 
third anniversary of the capture of Cornwallis, in which he had 
himself so efficiently cooperated. Fifty years have passed away. 
The pillars of this venerable hall, then twined with garlands, are 
hung with mourning. The cypress has taken the place of the rose 
bud ; the songs of patriotic rejoicing are hushed ; and the funeral 
anthem is heard in their stead ; but the memory of the beloved 
champion, the friend of America and of freedom, shall bloom in 
eternal remembrance.* 

* The incidents of Lafayette's visit to America in 1784, are succinctly related in 
the ' Letters of an American Farmer.' The narrative is highly interesting, and but 
for the more recent and still more extraordinary events of 1824, would well merit 
a more detailed reference. 

56 



450 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

The year after his return to France, Lafayette made a tour in 
Germany. He was received throughout that country with the at- 
tention due tn his rank and the eclat of his services in America. 
At \ ienna, be met the duke of York, at the table of the emperor 
Joseph, and employed the opportunities which such an interview 
afforded him, to inculcate the policy of a liberal course, on the pari 
ot the powers of Europe, and particularly Great Britain, toward 
the rising State- of America, tie was received with distinction 
b) Frederic the Great, and accompanied him on a tour of inspec- 
tion and review of his armies. On this occasion, he became ac- 
quainted with the flying artillery, which Frederic had just organ- 
ized, and formed the purpose of introducing it into the service of 
France, on the first opportunity : — an intention which he carried 
into effect, when, at the commencement of the French Revolution, 
In was placed at the h< ad of an army. 

On his return to Paris, he united with .M. de Malsherbes in en- 
deavoring to ameliorate the political condition of the Protestants. In 
concert with the minister of the .Marine, the .Marshall de Castries, 
he expended a large sum from his private fortune, in an experiment 
towards the education and eventual emancipation of slaves. To 
this end, he purchased a plantation in Cayenne, intending to give 
freedom to the laborers, as soon as they should be in a condition to 
enjo) it without abuse, in the progress of the Revolution, this 
plantation, with the other estates of Lafayette, was confiscated, 

and the slaves SOld hack to perpetual bondage, b) the faction 

which was drenching France in blood, under the motto of liberty 
and equality. 

On the breaking out of the troubles in Holland, in \~-~. the 
patriotic party made overtures to Lafayette to place himself at the 
head of a popular government in that quarter; hut the progress of 
the Revolution was arrested b) the invasion of Prussia, and the 
policy of England and France, lie-ides this, greater events wire 
preparing at home. 

Vs fir a- the United States were concerned, during all the period 
which intervened from the pi ace of L783 to the organization ol 
the federal government, Lafayette performed, in substance, the 
functions ol their minister. He was engaged with indefatigable 
industry, and a zeal that knew no hounds, in promoting the interests 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 



451 



of America at the courts of France and Spain. The published 
works of Mr Jefferson, which are before the country, and the Di- 
plomatic Correspondence of our ministers abroad, during this period, 
abundantly show that not one of the accredited ministers of the 
United States abroad, able and faithful as they were, was more 
assiduously devoted to the service of the country and the promotion 
of its political and commercial interests, than Lafayette. New and 
most convincing proofs of this have recently come before the pub- 
lic* 

At length the mighty crisis came on. The French Revolution 
draws near ; — that stupendous event of which it is impossible to be 
silent ; — next to impossible to speak. Louis XV once said to a 
courtier, ' this French monarchy is fourteen hundred years old : it 
cannot last long.' Such was the terrific sentiment, which, even in 
the bosom of his base pleasures, stole into the conscience of the 
modern Sardanapalus. But in that mysterious and bewildering 
chain of connexion which binds together the fortunes of states and 
of men, the last convulsive effort of this worn out and decrepit 
monarchy, in which the spasmodic remains of her strength were 
exhausted, and her crazy finances plunged into irretrievable confu- 
sion, was the American alliance. This corrupt and feeble despot- 
ism, trembling on the verge of an abyss, toward which time and 
events were urging it, is made to hold out a strong and helping 
hand, to assist the rising republic into the family of nations. The 
generous spirits whom she sent to lead her armies to the triumphs 
of republicanism in America, came back to demand, for their own 
country, and to assert, on their own soil, those political privileges, 
for which they had been contending in America. The process of 
argument was short. If this plan of government, administered by 
responsible agents, is good for America, it is good for France. If 
our brethren in the United States will not submit to power assumed 
by men not accountable for its abuse, why should we ? If we 
have done wisely and well in going to shed our blood for this con- 
stitutional liberty beyond the Atlantic, let us be ready to shed it in 
the same great cause, for our fathers, for our friends, for ourselves, 

* In the two collections published under the authority of Congress, — the Diplo- 
matic Correspondence of the Revolution; and its Continuation to the Peace of 
1789. 



452 I WKKTT'S ORATION-. 

in our native land. Is it possible to find, 1 will not say a sonnd 
and sufficient answer to this argument, but an answer which would 
be thought sound and sufficient, l>> the majority of ardent tempers 
and inquisitive minds? 

The atrocious, the unexampled, the ungodly abuses of the reign 
of tenor have made the \eiv name of the French Revolution hate- 
ful to mankind. The blood chills, the flesh creeps, the hair -Kinds 
on end. at the recital of its horrors ; and no slight degree of the 
odium the\ occasion is unavoidably reflected on all, who had any 
agency in bringing it on. The subsequent events in Ehirope bav< 
also involved the French Revolution in a deep political unpopu- 
larity. It is unpopular in Great Britain, in the rest of Europe, in 
America, in France itself; and not a little of this unpopularity 
falls on every one whose name is prominently connected with it. 
All this is prejudice, — natural prejudice, if you please, — but still 
prejudice. The French Revolution w as the work of sheer necessity. 
It began in the act of the court, casting about, in despair, for the 
means of facing the frightful dilapidation of the finances. Loui- 
\\ wa- rijit. — the monarchy could not go on. The Revolution 
was as inevitable as fate. 

I go farther. Penetrated as I am to heart-sickness, when I pe- 
ruse the tale of its atrocities, I do not scruple to declare, that the 
I'o och Revolution, as it existed in the purposes of Lafayette and 
associate-, and while it obeyed their impulse, and so long a^ it was 
controlled by them, was, notwithstanding the melancholy excesses 
which stained even its early stages, a work of righteous reform; — 

that justice, humanity, and religion demanded it. 1 maintain this 

with some reluctance, because it is a matter, in respect to which. 
all are not of one mind, and I would not willingly say any thing, 
on this occasion, which could awaken a single discordant feeling. 
Rut I speak from a sense of duly ; and standing as I do over the 

i- of Lafayette, I may Dot, ifmj feeble voice can prevenl it. 
allow the fame of one of the purest men that ever lived to be sac- 
rificed to a prejudice; to be overwhelmed with the odium ofabUS- 

'. hieh he did not foresee, which, if he had foreseen, he could 
not have averted, and with which he had himself do personal con- 
nexion, bul as their victim. Ii is for this reason 1 maintain, that 
the French Revolution, as conceived hv Lafayette, was a work. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 453 

of righteous reform. Read the history of France, from the revo- 
cation of the edict of Nantes downward. Reflect upon the scan- 
dalous influence which dictated that inhuman decree to the dotage 
of Louis XIV, — a decree which cost France as much blood as 
flowed under the guillotine. Trace the shameful annals of the re- 
gency, and the annals not less shameful, of Louis XV. Consider 
the overgrown wealth and dissoluteness of the clergy, and the ar- 
rogance and corruption of the nobility, possessing together a vast 
proportion of the property, and bearing no part of the burdens of 
the state. Recollect the abuses of the law, — high judicial places 
venal in the market, — warrants of arrest issued to the number of 
one hundred and fifty thousand in the single reign of Louis XV, 
oftentimes in blank, to court favorites, to be filled up with what 
names, for what prisons, for what times they pleased. Add to this 
the oppression of the peasantry by iniquitous taxes that have be- 
come proverbial in the history of misgovernment, and the outlawry 
of one twenty-fourth part of the population as Protestants ; — who 
were forbidden to leave the kingdom, subject to be shot if they 
crossed the frontier, but deprived of the protection of the govern- 
ment at home, their contracts annulled, their children declared ille- 
gitimate, and their ministers, — who might venture, in dark forests 
and dreary caverns, to conduct their prohibited devotions, — doomed 
to the scaffold. As late as 1745, two Protestant ministers were 
executed in France, for performing their sacred functions. Could 
men bear these things in a country like France, a reading, inquir- 
ing country, with the success of the American Revolution before 
their eyes, and at the close of the eighteenth century ? Can any 
man who has Anglo-Saxon blood in his veins, hesitate for an an- 
swer ? Did not England shake off less abuses than these, a cen- 
tury and a half before ? Had not a paltry unconstitutional tax, 
neither in amount nor in principle to be named with the taille or 
the gabelle, just put the continent of America in a flame ; and 
was it possible that the young officers of the French army should 
come back to their native land, from the war of political emanci- 
pation waged on this continent^ and sit down contented, under the 
old abuses, at home ? It was not possible. The Revolution was 
as inevitable as fate, and the only question was, by whose agency it 
should be brought on. 



454 l'.\ i: RETT'S ORATIONS. 

Tlic first step in the French Revolution was, as is well known. 
the assinihl \ nf \ otables, February 22d, 1787. Its last convoca- 
tion had been in L626, under the Cardinal Richelieu. Ii was now- 
convoked by the minister Calonne, the controller general of the 
finances, from the utter impossibility, w ithout some unusual resources, 
of providing for the deficiency in the finances, which had, for the 
preceding pear, amounted to 181,000,000 livres, and was estima- 
ted ;ii the annual average of 140,000,000. This assembly con- 
sisted of one hundred and thirty-seven persons, of whom scarcely 
ten were in any sen-e the represent a ti\e< of the people. Lafaj ette 
was of course a distinguished member, then just completing his 
thirtieth year. In an assembly called l>\ direction of the icing, and 
Consisting almost exclusively of the high aristocracy, he stepped 
forth, at once, the champion of the people. It was the intention 
of the government to confine the action of the assembly to the dis- 
cussion of the state of the finances, and the contrivance of means 
to repair their disorder. It was not so that Lafayette understood 
his commission. He rose to denounce the abuses of the govern- 
ment. The Count d'Artois, — since Charles X, the brother of the 
km Lf. — attempted to call him to order, as acting on a subjecl not 
before the assembly. 'Weare summoned,' said Lafayette, c to 
make the truth known to his Majesty. I must discharge my duty.' 
He accordingly, after an animated harangue on the abuses of the 
government, proposed the abolition of private arrests and of the 
state prisons, in which anj one mighl be confined on the warrant 
of the minister; — the restoration of Protestants to the equal privi- 
of citizenship, and the convocation of the State- General, or 
representatives of the people. • What ! ' said the Count d'Artois, 
c do you demand the States General?' 'Yes,' replied Lafayette, 
• and something better than that. 3 

The assembly of Notables was convoked a second time in L788, 
and Lafayette was again found in his place, pleading tor the 
representation of the people. As a member of the provincial 
assemblies of A.uvergne and Britanny, he also took the lead in all 
the measures ol reform thai were proposed b\ those patriotic 

hod: 

Rut palliatives were vain : it became impossible to resist the 
impulse of public opinion, and the States General were convent d. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 455 

This body assembled at Versailles, on the 3d of May, 1789. — 
According to Mr Jefferson, writing from personal observation on 
the spot, its initiatory movements were concerted by Lafayette and 
a small circle of friends, at the hotel of Mr Jefferson himself, who 
calls Lafayette, at this momentous period of its progress, the Atlas of 
the Revolution.* He proposed and carried through the assembly, of 
which he was vice-president, a declaration of rights similar to those 
contained in the American constitutions. He repeated the demand 
which he had made in the assembly of the Notables, for the sup- 
pression oU-ettres de cachet, and the admission of Protestants to all the 
privileges of citizens. For the three years that he sustained the com- 
mand of the National Guard, he kept the peace of the capital, rent 
as it was by the intrigues of the parties, the fury of a debased pop- 
ulace, and the agitations set on foot by foreign powers ; and so long 
as he remained at the head of the Revolution, with much to condemn 
and more to lament, and which no one resisted more strenuously 
than Lafayette, it was a work of just reform, after ages of frightful 
corruption and abuse. 

Before the National Guard was organized, but while he filled 
the place of commander of the city guard of Paris, he was the 
great bulwark of the public peace, at the critical period of the 
destruction of the Bastile. From his position at the head of 
the embodied militia of the capital and its environs, Lafayette was 
clothed in substance with the concentrated powers of the state. 
These, it is unnecessary to say, were exercised by him for the pre- 
servation of order and the repression of violence. Hundreds of those 
threatened, at this unsettled period, as victims of popular violence, 
were saved by his intervention. But when at length he found him- 
self unable to rescue the unfortunate Foulon and Berthier from the 
hands of the infuriated populace, he refused to retain a power which 
he could not make effective, and resigned his post. The earnest 
entreaties of the friends of order, assuring him that they deemed 
the public peace to be safe in no hands but his, persuaded him to 
resume it ; but not till the electoral districts of Paris had con- 
firmed the appointment, and promised to support him in the dis- 
charge of his duty. 

* Jefferson's Correspondence. Vol. I, pp. 75, 84. 



456 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

It was a shorl period after this event, that Lafayette proposed 
the organization of the National Guard of France. The ancient 
colors of the city of Paris were blue and red. To indicate the 
union, winch he wished to promote between a kin l: governing by 
a constitution and a people protected by laws, he proposed to add, 
— the white, — the loyal color of Prance ; and to form of the three 
tli' 1 new ensign of the nation. * 1 bring you, gentlemen.' said he, 
' a badge, which will '_ r <> round the world ; — an institution at once 
civil and military: which will change the system of European 
tactics, and reduce the absolute governments to the alternative of 
being conquered, if they do not imitate it, and overturned if they 
do. 3 The example of Paris was followed in the provinces, and the 
National Guard, three millions seven hundred thousand strong, was 
organized throughout Prance, with Lafayette al its head. 

These are occurrences, which arrest the attention, as the eye 
runs down the crowded page of the chronicles of the time. But 
we are too apt to pass over unnoticed, the humbler efforts, by 
which Lafayette endeavored, from the first moment of the Revo- 
lution, to make it produce the fruits of practical reform in the insti- 
tutions ot the country. Under his influence, and against strong op- 
position, — a deputation was senl by the city of Paris to the nation- 
al assembly, demanding an immediate reform in criminal jurispru- 
dence, — the publicity of trials. — the confrontation of witnesses, — 
the pr'n ilege of counsel for the accused, and free intercourse between 
the prisoner and his family. These privileges were enjoyed by the 
accused, in the only three state trials which took place while Lafay- 
ette retained his popularity; and the credii of having obtained 
them was justly ascribed to him, by the counsel of one of the indi- 
viduals by whom they were enjoyed. 

On the 5th of October, \~~ ii .), occurred the only incident in the 

hie ot Lafayette, upon which calumny has ventured to rely, as 
having affixed a bloi upon his fair fame. Even Sir Walter Scott, 
in relating the history of this occurrence, has afforded si coun- 
tenance to the imputations against Lafayette. I trust, therefore. 
1 -hall not -ecu, | () descend too much into particular-, if I briefly 
repeat tin' incidents of that night of terror. 

Paris, during the whole of this memorable season, was in a state 
of the greatesl excitement. All the elements of confusion were in 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 457 

the highest action. A great political revolution in progress, — the 
king feeble and irresolute, but already subdued by the magnitude 
of the events, — his family and court divided, corrupt, and laboring, 
by intrigue and treachery, to arrest the progress of the Revolution, 
— the duke of Orleans lavishing immense sums to sow dissension, 
and urge the Revolution to a point, at which, as he hoped, it 
would transfer the crown from the head of his unhappy kinsman 
to his own ; — the fiercest conflicts among the different orders of 
the state, and a wild consciousness of power in the mass of the 
people, late awakened for the recovery of long lost rights, and the 
revenge of centuries of oppression ; — these were some of the ele- 
ments of disorder. The match was laid to the train, at a festival 
at the palace of Versailles, at which the national cockade was 
trampled under foot by the body guard, in presence of the 
queen and her infant son, and the Revolution denounced in terms 
of menace and contumely. The news spread to Paris, — already 
convulsed by the intrigues of the duke of Orleans, and exaspera- 
ted by a want of bread. The hungry populace were told that the 
famine which they suffered was intentionally produced by the king 
and his ministry, for the purpose of starving them back to slavery. 
Riots broke out at an early hour on the 5th of October, around 
the city hall. For eight hours, Lafayette exerted himself, and not 
without success, to restrain the frantic crowds which constantly re- 
assembled, as soon as dispersed, with cries, ' to Versailles for bread.' 
Hearing, at length, that from other points of the capital, infuriated 
mobs were moving toward Versailles, with muskets and cannons, 
he asked the orders of the municipality to hasten himself, with a 
detachment of the National Guard, to the defence of the royal 
family. On his arrival at Versailles, he administered to the troops 
the oath of fidelity to the nation, the law, and the king. He en- 
tered the court of the palace, accompanied only by two commis- 
sioners of the city. It was filled with Swiss guards, and the terri- 
fied inmates of the palace ; and as he advanced, the gloomy silence 
was broken by the exclamation of some person present, c Here 
comes Cromwell.' ' Cromwell,' replied Lafayette, ' would not have 
come here alone.' Admitted to the presence of the king, whom 
he treated with the deference due to his rank, Lafayette asked that 
the posts in and about the palace might be confided to him. This 
57 



458 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

requesl was refused, as contrary to etiquette. In consequence, the 
palace itself, the interior court, and the approach by the garden 
remained, as usual, protected onlj bj the body guard and the 
Swiss. At two o'clock in the morning, Lafayette made the round 
of the posts under bis command, and asked another interview with 
the king ; but was told thai he was asleep. After five o'clock in 
the morning, while all was quiet, exhausted bj nearly twenty-four 
hours of unremitted and anxious labor, he repaired to his quarters, 
in the immediate vicinity of the palace, to receive the reports of 
hi-; aids, — to prepare despatches for Paris> — and to take food and 
repose. Scarcely had he reached his quarters for these purpose s, 
when an officer ran to apprize him thai a hand of ruffians, con- 
cealed in the shrubberj of the garden, had bursl into the palace, 
and forced their way over two of the body guards, to the chamber 
of the queen; who was barelj enabled, b) the brave resistance of 
the guards at her door, to escape with her life. 

Lafayette rushed to the scene of action, with the detachment of 
his f >ire nearest at hand, and look the proper steps to arrest the 
progress of the disorder The royal familj were protected, and 
several of the bodj guards rescued from the mob. Happening to 
be left alone, at one moment, in the midsl of the lawless crowd. 
an individual among them raised a cry for the head of Lafayette. 
The imminent danger in which be stood was averted by the cool- 
ness, w ith w Inch he ordered the madman to hi' seized hy his fellows 
around him. The king deemed it necessary to yield to the clamors 
of the populace, and return with them to Pari-. Lafayette was 
alarmed at the symptoms of disaffection toward the queen, which 
still prevailed in the throng. \l once to make trial of the popu- 
lar feeling, and to extend to In ir the protection of his unbounded 
popularity, he had the courage to propose to her, to appear with 
him alone on the balcony of the castle, with her son the dauphin 
on her arm. Leading her forward toward- the people, it was 
his purpose to make an appeal to them on her behalf. The con- 
futed acclamations of the vasl throng prevented his being heard: 
and unable, in anj other manner, to convey to the immense am! 
agitated ass< mblage in motion beneath them, the sentiments which 
he wished to inspire in their bosoms, toward- the defenceless per- 
son "I the queen, and the innocent child whom .-he held in In i 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 459 

arms, he stooped and kissed her hand. A cry of ' Long live the 
queen ! Long live Lafayette !' responded to the action. Return- 
ing to the royal cabinet, he was embraced by its inmates as the 
saviour of the king and his family, and till the last hour of their 
unfortunate existence, the king and the queen never failed to do 
him the justice to acknowledge, that on this terrific day he had 
saved their lives. 

From the commencement of the Revolution, Lafayette refused 
all pecuniary compensation, and every unusual appointment or 
trust. Not a dignity known to the ancient monarchy, or suggested 
by the disorder of the times, but was tendered to him and refused. 
More than once, it was proposed to create him field marshal, grand 
constable, lieutenant general of the kingdom. The titles of dicta- 
tor and commander-in-chief of the armies of France, were succes- 
sively proposed to him, but in vain. Knowing that the representa- 
tives of the great federation of the National Guards, who repaired 
to Paris in 1790, designed to invest him with the formal command 
of this immense military force, he hastened the passage of a decree 
of the assembly forbidding any person to exercise the command 
of more than one district. And having, at the close of a review, 
been conducted to the national assembly by an immense and en- 
thusiastic throng, he took that occasion to mount the tribune, and 
announce the intention of returning to private life, as soon as the 
preparation of the constitution should be completed. 

When the feudal system was established in Europe, and its en- 
tire population, in the several countries into which it was divided, 
was organized on a military principle, the various posts of com- 
mand were dignified with appropriate names. All the great lords 
were barons, and according to their position at the head of armies, 
in the immediate train of the king, or on the frontier, they were 
dukes, counts, and marquises. These were titles, significant when 
first given, and in themselves harmless, when considered apart from 
the hereditary transmission of estates and rank, which in process of 
time went with them. But having long since ceased to possess 
their original significance, with the first steps of the Revolution, 
their frivolity was too apparent to be endured. There was a sort 
of theatrical insipidity in these curious gradations of unmeaning 
titles among men, who, in difficult times, were met together on 



400 i \ BBETT'S ORATIONS. 

serious business ; and among the early measures of the assembly 
was the decree pronouncing their abolition. Lafayette, whose 
patent ofnobilitj had al least the merit of four centuries of antU 
quity, was among the firsl to support the proposition, and lay down 
his title of Marquis, never again to be resumed. In the lapse of 
a Uw years, the member of assembly who proposed the abolition, 
became a counl under Bonaparte, and those who were the mosl 
zealous to procure its adoption, lived to sec themselves blazing in 
the decorations of the imperial court. But neither under Napole- 
on nor the restoration, did it enter into the head of Lafayette, to 
be guilty of this weakness, and the onlj title which he wore till 
In- death, was that which he fast derived from his commission in 
the American army. 

On the recurrence of the anniversary of the destruction of the 
Bastile, on the I 1th of July. 1790, the labors of the assembly in 
the formation of the constitution, were so far advanced, thai it was 
deemed expedient, b) a solemn act of popular ratification, to give 
the sanction of France to the principles on which it was founded. 
The place assigned for the ceremony was the Champ de Mais, and 
the act itself was regarded as a grand act of federation, by which 
the en i ire population of France, through the medium of an immense 
representation, engaged themselves to each other by oaths and 
imposing rites, to preserve the constitution, the monarchy, and the 
law. In front of i he militar) school at Paris, and near the river 
Si ine, a vasl plain is marked out for the imposing pageant. Innu- 
merable laborers are employed, and -till greater multitudes of vol- 
uuii era cooperate with them, in preparing a vast embankment dis- 
posed on terraces, and covered w ilh turf. The entire population 
of the capital •'\u\ its environs, from the bigbesl to the lowest con- 
dition of life, of both sexes, and of ever) profession, is engaged 

fin in da} to da) . and from w eek to w e< k. in earn iii'i on the exca- 
vation. The academies and schools, — the official bodies of ever) 
description, — the trades and the professions, and every class and 
division of the people repair, from morning to night, to take a part 
in the work, cheered by the instruments of a hundred full orches- 
tras, and animated with ever) sport and game in which an excited 
and cheerful populace gives \ < 1 1 1 to its delight. It was the | 
laturnalia of liberty ; — the meridian of the Revolution, when its 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 461 

great and unquestioned benefits seemed established on a secure 
basis, with as little violence and bloodshed as could be reasonably 
expected in the tumultuous action of a needy, exasperated, and 
triumphant populace. The work at length is completed, — the 
terraces are raised, — and three hundred thousand spectators are 
seated in the vast amphitheatre. A gallery is elevated in front of 
the military school, and in its centre a pavilion above the throne. 
In the rear of the pavilion is prepared a stage, on which the queen, 
the dauphin, and the royal family are seated. The deputed mem- 
bers of the federation, eleven thousand for the army and navy, 
and eighteen thousand for the National Guard of France, are 
arranged in front, — within a circle, formed by eighty-three lances 
planted in the earth, adorned with the standards of the eighty-three 
departments. In the midst of the Champ de Mars, the centre of 
all eyes, with nothing above it, but the canopy of heaven, — arose 
a magnificent altar, — the loftiest ever raised on earth. Two hun- 
dred priests in white surplices, with the tri-color as a girdle, are 
disposed on the steps of the altar ; on whose spacious summit mass 
is performed by the bishop of Autun. On the conclusion of the 
religious ceremony, the members of the federation and the depu- 
ties of the assembly advance to the altar, and take the oath of 
fidelity to the nation, the constitution, and the king. The king 
himself assumes the name and rank of chief of the federation, 
and bestows the title of its major general on Lafayette. The 
king took the oath on his throne, but Lafayette, as the first citizen 
of France, advancing to the altar, at the head of thirty thousand 
deputies, and in the name of the mighty mass of the National 
Guard, amidst the plaudits of near half a million of his fellow citi- 
zens, in the presence of all that was most illustrious and excellent 
in the kingdom, whose organized military power he represented as 
their chief, took the oath of fidelity to the nation, the constitution, 
and the king. Of all the oaths that day taken, by the master 
spirits of the time, his was, perhaps, the only one kept inviolate. 
It sealed his fidelity to the doubtful fortunes of the monarch, and 
in the onward march of the Revolution, — destined to wade through 
seas of blood, — it raised an inseparable barrier between Lafayette 
and the remorseless innovators who soon appeared on the scene. 
It decided his own fortunes, and in no inconsiderable degree the 
fortunes of the Revolution. 



46'2 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

The beauty of this great festival was impaired by a drenching 
rain, and the general joy with which it was celebrated was a last 
gleam of sunshine through the gathering clouds of the Revolution. 
The flighl of the king, which occurred the following summer, 
placed Lafayette in an embarrassing position. He was determined 
to maintain the sanctitj of his oath ol fidelity to this unfortunate 
prince. 'The king had given his word of honor to Lafayette, thai 
he would not attempt to leave the capital ; and Lafayette had. in 
consequence, pledged his own honor. — his head even, — to the assem- 
bly, that no attempt io carry oh' the k i 1 1 lt should succeed. Nev- 
ertheless, on the night of the 21st of June, the king and royal 
family succeeded in making their escape from Paris-, and Lafayette 

was denounced the same da\ . h\ Danton. at the (dub of Jacobins, 

a- being either a traitor who had allowed the king to escape ;— or 
as incompetenl to his trust, in not knowing how to prevenl it. 
With the moral courage which carried him safe through so many 
fearful days of peril. Lafayette presented himself, calm and fear- 
less, before the incensed multitude, and made his good faith to the 

public apparent. I >m the difficulties of his position daily increased. 

He was alternate I j compelled to Strain his popularity to the Utmost, 

in repressing the violence of the populace, and controlling the in- 
trigues of the partisans of the ancienl order of things. Weary of 
this situation, he deemed the definitive adoption of the constitution 
a justifiable occasion for laying down his ungracious command, and, 
on the 8th of October, 1791, he took his leave of the .National 
Guard, in a letter which would have done no discredit, — for its 
patriotic spirit and enlightened counsels, — to the greal American 
exemplar, whom he had adopted as the object of his respectful 
imitation. 

Hitherto the powers of Europe had looked with astonishment 

and apparent inactivity, upon the portentous events that were 
crowding upon each other in fiance: ami fiance herself, mm 
with factions, and distracted with the embarrassments incident to 
such mighty changes, had scarcely turned her attention to the for- 
eign relations of the country. In this manner, five years from the 

meeting of the assembly of Notables passed away, during which 

there was Unconsciousl] forming and organizing itself at home and 

abroad, the principle "I those mighty wars which were to s 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 463 

ize the next thirty years. From the commencement of 1792, the 
questions which arose between the French and Austrian govern- 
ments, relative to the territorial jurisdiction of the empire on the 
border of France, ripened towards a rupture ; and, strange as it 
may now appear, an open declaration of hostilities was the desire 
of all the numerous parties, interests, and governments, concerned 
in the issue. The king of France, the queen and the partisans of 
the old regime generally at home ; the emperor and the other 
sovereigns of Europe, the emigrant princes and nobles, and their 
friends, desired a war as the means of pouring down upon the pop- 
ular party of France, the combined military powers of the ancient 
government. On the other hand, the leaders of all the factions in 
France desired not less ardently a declaration of war, as the means 
of strengthening their power by the organization and control of 
standing armies, and gratifying the ambitious, the avaricious, the 
needy, and the adventurous in their ranks, with promotion and 
plunder. The zealots burned with the vision of revolutionizing 
Europe. The honest constitutional party alone deprecated the 
measure ; but even they were bound by their oaths to take arms 
against the preposterous ultimatum of the Austrian cabinet, which 
required France to renounce the constitution of 1791, a constitu- 
tion which the king and people had alike sworn to defend. And 
thus all parties strangely rushed into a war, destined, in turn, to 
subvert, crush, and revolutionize, with indiscriminate fury, every 
interest, party, and government drawn into its vortex. 

The formal declaration of war was made by Louis XVI, on the 
20th of March, 1792. Three armies, each nominally consisting 
of fifty thousand men, were raised to guard the frontier of the Neth- 
erlands, and placed under the command of Luckner, an ancient 
chieftain of the seven years' war, Lafayette, and Rochambeau. 
The plan of operations was decided by the king in council, at 
Paris, in conference with the three generals, who immediately 
took the field. The political intrigues of the capital were not slow 
in reaching the camp. The Jacobins at Paris, not yet the major- 
ity, but rapidly becoming so, had Jong marked out Lafayette as 
their victim. Orders were sent by the minister of war designedly 
to embarrass and disgust him ; and he soon found that it was ne- 
cessary for him openly to denounce the Jacobins to the legislative 



Kil l\ I.KKTT'S ORATIONS. 

assembly and the nation, as the enemies of the country. He ac- 
cordingly . on the 16th of June, addressed a letter to the assembly, 

in which he proclaimed this faction to be the enemy <>f the consti- 
tution and the people; and called on all the friends of liberty to 
unite for its suppression. The voice of reason for a moment pre- 
vailed ; — a majority of the a-^embU received with approbation the 
letter of Lafayette, and seventy-live of the departments of France, 

in their local assemblies, gave their formal sanction to its sentiments. 
Braving the enemj in his strong hold, be followed up his letter, b) 
hastening to Paris, — appearing at the bar of the assembly, and 
demanding the punishment of the wretches who had forced the 
Tuilleries, and menaced and insulted the king the preceding week. 
Anxious for the safety of the king's person, he proposed to him to 
retire to Compiegne, under the protection of his army, and there 
await the issue of the efforts for the suppression of the Jacobins. 
Incredible a-- it may appear, these proposals were rejected, from an 
unwillingness on the part of the queen, to owe her life a second 
time to Lafayette, and in consequence of the advice secretly con- 
veyed to the court by the duke of Brunswick, then concentrating 
his army on the frontiers : who recommended to the king to remain 
in tranquillity at the Tuilleries, till the allied forces should hasten 
to his relief. 

Lafayette accordingly returned to his army, defeated in the last 
efforts which afforded a shadow of hope for the safety of the royal 
family or the preservation of the constitution. On the 8th of Au- 
gust, he was formally denounced in the assembly, as an enemj ol 

his country, and a motion made for his arrest and trial. After ve- 
hement debates, it was put to vote, and resulted in his acquittal, b) 
a majority of K>1 to 224. Bui many of those who voted in his 
favor were, on the following day, insulted by the populace. Baffled 
in the attempt to destroy him, and in him the last support of the 
constitutional monarchy, and weary of the tardy march ol their 
infernal policy, the Jacobins at Paris resolved, without further de- 
lay, to strike a blow which should intimidate the majority ol the 
assembly, and the constitutional partj throughout the country, ,and, 
by a frightful measure of violence and blood, establish the reign ol 
terror. Accordingly the horrid traged) of the MMh of August is 
enacted, — the palace forced bj the arm) of assassins, — its guards 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 465 

massacred, and the king and the royal family driven to take refuge 
in the assembly, by which, after suffering every thing that was dis- 
tressing, humiliating, and cruel, he is deposed, and ordered to be 
imprisoned in the temple. The news of these events reached La- 
fayette at his head-quarters in Sedan. He had sworn to support 
the constitution, and to be faithful to the king. The assembly, — 
the capital, — the people, — the army, were struck with dismay ; — 
the horrid scenes of Paris were acted over in the departments, and 
the reign of terror was established. Commissioners were sent by 
the assembly to the army, to arrest the generals ; — it remained for 
Lafayette to anticipate them by an attack on the enemy, which, if 
successful, would but put new strength in the hands of Robespierre 
and his associates, — to march on Paris, which, in the present state 
of feeling in the nation and in the army, was to deliver himself up 
to his executioners, — or to save himself by flight. Happily, he 
adopted the latter course, and, having placed his army in the best 
condition possible, to receive no injury from his leaving it, he passed, 
with a few of his friends and aids, across the frontier, intending to 
repair to Holland or England, countries not as yet engaged in the 
war. While in the territory of Liege, he fell into the hands of an 
Austrian military force, and notwithstanding the circumstances un- 
der which he had left his army and France, was treated as a pris- 
oner. Various unworthy attempts were made, to engage Lafayette 
in the service of the armies marching against France, and to draw 
from him information which would be of use in the approaching 
campaign. Refusing to act the treacherous part proposed to him, 
he was handed over to the Prussian government, and dragged from 
fortress to fortress, till he was thrown into the dungeons of Magde- 
burg. The secrets of that horrid prison-house have been laid open 
to the world. Lafayette was there confined in a subterraneous 
vault, — dark, — damp, — and secured by four successive doors, 
loaded with bolts and chains. But the arms of the duke of Bruns- 
wick were unsuccessful in France. On the heights of Valmy, the 
first of those victories of revolutionary fame, which astonished and 
terrified the world, was gained over the Prussian army. Negotia- 
tions for peace were concluded, and an exchange of prisoners was 
proposed. To evade the necessity of including Lafayette in the 
exchange, he was transferred by the king of Prussia to the emper- 
58 



466 i \ BRETT'S ORATIONS. 

or of Germany, and immured in the castle of Olmiitz, in Moravia. 
On entering this prison, Lafayette and his fellow sufferers were 
told, that, 'from that time forward, they would see nothing but the 
four walls within which the) were enclosed ; that no tidings would 
reach them of what was passing without; that not evm their gaol- 
ers would pronounce their name-: that when mentioned in the 
despatches of the government, it would onlv be by their numbers 
on the register; thai no intelligence would pass from them to their 
families, nor from their families to them ; and that, to prevent their 
seeking relief from the slov» agonies of this torture, they would be 
interdicted the use of knives or forks, and every other instrument 
of self-destruction. 

It is scarcely necessary to state, that the health of Lafayette 
sunk, in no long time, under this barbarous treatment. After a 
thrice repeated opinion on the part of his physician, that he could 
not live, unless permitted to breathe a purer air than that of his 
dungeon, and after answering the first application by the remark, 
that - he was not yet sick enough,' the court of Vienna, either 
touched with remorse, or shaking before the outcry of public indig- 
nation, in Europe and America, granted him permission to take 
exercise abroad under an aimed escort, bul not on condition that 
he would not attempt his escape, as was falsely asserted by his ca- 
lumniators. 

This opportunity of taking the air abroad, gave occasion for a 
hold and generous effort to effect his liberation. I li- friend-, from 
the first moment of his captivity, had had this object at heart: 
hut after his removal to Olmiitz, the) remained for along time 
ignoranl of the place of his captivity. The count Lally Tolendal, 
who, notwithstanding their difference of opinion in politic-, had 
ever preserved his personal respect and attachment for Lafayette, 
-pared no pains to discover the place of hi- seclusion. He employ- 
ed for this purpose, a young Hanoverian physician, Dr Eric Boll- 
iiiann. afterwards a naturalized citizen of the United State-. I)r 
Bollmann immediately undertook a voyage of inquin into Germa- 
ny, but could learn only that Lafayette had keen transferred from 

the Prussian, to the Austrian dominions. On a sec I visit to 

Germany, made in the same benevolent object, he succeeded in 
taining that there were four state prisoners confined, with ex- 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 467 

treme rigor, in separate cells at Olmutz, which he had no reason 
to doubt were Lafayette and his companions. He immediately 
devoted himself to the object of effecting his liberation. He estab- 
lished himself for six months as a physician at Vienna, to prevent 
the suspicions, which might be awakened by an unprepared ap- 
pearance in the Austrian dominions, in the immediate neighborhood 
of Olmutz. While engaged in concerting his plans, Mr Huger, of 
South Carolina, the son of the gentleman under whose roof La- 
fayette passed his first night in America, happened to arrive at 
Vienna on his travels, and engaged with cordiality in the generous 
enterprise of Dr Bollmann. 

They repaired at length to Olmutz. Dr Bollmann had contrived 
to obtain letters at Vienna, which obtained him the means, in his 
professional character, of secretly communicating with Lafayette, 
and agreeing upon a signal, by which he might be recognized by 
the two friends, — and ascertaining the day when he would be per- 
mitted to take exercise abroad. On that day they repaired, on 
their horses, to a place under the ramparts of the city, on the road 
by which Lafayette and his guard would pass. The carriage soon 
arrives, containing Lafayette, an officer, and a soldier. The friends 
allow it to pass them, that they may exchange the signal agreed 
upon. This being done, they again pass forward in advance of 
the carriage, toward a spot where Lafayette was accustomed to 
descend and walk. The moment he set his foot on the ground, 
Lafayette, unarmed as he was, fell upon his two guards. The 
soldier, disarmed and terrified, instantly fled to the city, to report 
what had happened. The contest with the officer was violent. 
Lafayette succeeded in depriving him of his sword, but in the con- 
test, the officer, with his teeth, tore the hand of Lafayette to the 
bone. He also suffered a violent strain in his back, in consequence 
of his exertions. The two friends came up at the moment of the 
struggle, and placing Lafayette on one of their horses, Mr Huger 
told him in English to go to Hoff. This was a post town about 
twenty miles from Olmutz, where they had prepared a travelling 
carriage. He mistook the expression, as merely a direction to go 
off, and failed to take the proper road. 

One of the horses of Messrs Bollmann and Huger was trained 
to carry two persons ; the other horse, on which Lafayette was to 



Ili- I VP RETT'S ORATIONS. 

be mounted, unfortunatelj escaped in the confusion of the straggle. 
It became necessary, therefore, thai be should mount the horse 
destined for the two friends; and, on their argent solicitation, be 
rode forward alone, while the) remained behind, to retake their 
horse. Some time was losl m effecting this object, and when 
mounted bj Messrs Bollraann and Huger, he proved intractable, 
and it was found impossible to make him proceed. Mr Huger 
generously insisted on Dr Bollmann's riding off alone, while he 
should make his escape, as well as he could, on foot. Mr Huger 
was -non stopped !>_\ sonic pea>ant> who had witnessed the scene, 
and banded over to the officers and guards, who hastened in pur- 
suit. Dr Bollmann arrived with ease at HolF, hut there had the 
mortification to find thai Lafayette was prevented hy some cause, 
a1 that time unknown, from joining him. He passed the Prussian 
frontier, but was arrested in a day or two, as an Austrian fugitive. 
It was almost aighl when these events took place. Lafayette 
was oppressed with pain and fatigue. Being left alone, from the 
causes mentioned, he was not only at a loss what direction to take. 
hut was in a state of the most painful anxiety for the fate of his 
generous liberators. He proceeded towards the frontier, on the 
road h\ which he had entered Mora\ia. intending to secrete him- 
self there; and if Messrs Bollmann and Huger should be in prison, 
to give himself up, on condition of their release. Nol well know- 
ing the road, he requested a peasant to guide him. His broken 
German, the blood with which he was covered, and the condition 
of his clothing, sufficiently betrayed bis character. The pea-ant 
let! him, pretending to go in search of ahorse, on which to accom- 
pany him, but in reality to give the alarm at the next town, where 
be was arrested. The following day be was broughl hack to 01- 

miit/..* 

Bollmann and Huger were thrown into close dungeons, and 
chained h_\ the neck to the door. Mr Huger asked permission to 
-end an open letter to bis mother, containing the words ' I am 
alive.' and nothing else, but he was refused. He was left in the 

' \ portion of these detaOa are from an unpublished letter <>f Latoor-Maabonrg, 

one of the companions of Lafayette in captivity, preserved among the Washington 

S b, also, the highl) interesting 'Storj of the Life of Lafayette, as told 

r ■ 1 1 1 • ■ i to hi^ children.' 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 469 

most distressing uncertainty as to the fate of Lafayette and his 
companion, and could form only the darkest anticipations of his 
own. His food was bread and water. His cell was dark ; — and 
once in six hours it was entered by the gaoler, to see that his chain 
was sound. After six months' confinement, their case was adjudg- 
ed, and owing to the kind interference of count Metrowsky, a no- 
bleman of liberal character and great influence, who found in their 
crime but a new title to respect, they were released with a nominal 
punishment, and ordered to quit the Austrian dominions. Scarcely 
were they at liberty, when an order was issued for the re-investi- 
gation of their case ; but they were already in safety beyond the 
frontier. 

The treatment of Lafayette, after his re-capture, was doubly 
severe. On his first entrance into the prison at Olmutz, he had 
been plundered of his watch and shoe-buckles, the only articles of 
value which the Prussians had left in his possession. But on his 
return to his dungeon, he was stripped of the few comforts of life, 
which he had before been permitted to enjoy. He was kept in a 
dark room, denied a supply of decent clothing, and fed on bread 
and water. He was constantly told, as he was the first day of his 
capture by the Austrians, that he was reserved for the scaffold. 

But whatever anxiety he might feel on his own account, was 
merged in his cruel solicitude for his family. No tidings were per- 
mitted to reach him from his wife and children, and the last intel- 
ligence he had received from her was, that she was confined in pris- 
on at Paris. There she had been thrown during the reign of terror. 
Her grandmother, the duchess de Noailles, her mother, the duch- 
ess d'Ayen, and her sister, the countess de Noailles, had perished 
in one day on the scaffold. She was herself reserved for the like 
fate ; but the downfall of Robespierre preserved her. During her 
imprisonment, her great anxiety was for her son, George Washing- 
ton Lafayette, then just attaining the age, at which he was liable 
to be forced by the conscription into the ranks of the army. The 
friendly assistance of two of our fellow citizens, whom I have the 
pleasure to see before me, Mr Joseph Russell and Colonel Thomas 
H. Perkins, was exerted in his behalf; and in consequence of their in- 
fluence withBoissy d'Anglas,then a member of the committee of safe- 
ty, they succeeded in obtaining permission for his departure. He was 



470 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

conveyed by Mr Russell to Havre, whence he took passage to 
Boston, and after a month spenl in this city, was received into the 
family of General Washington al Mount Vernon, where he remain- 
ed till the liberation of his father.* 

1 1 < lit ■ \ < ■ ( I from anxiet) on account of her son, the wife of La- 
fayette was resolved, with her daughters, if possible, to share his 
captivity. Jusl escaped Cram the dungeons of Robespierre, she 
hastened to plunge into those of the German emperor. This ad- 
mirable lady, who, in the morning of life, had sent her youthful 
hero from her side, to fight the battles of constitutional freedom, 
beneath the guidance of Washington, now goes to immure herself 
with him in the gloomy cells of Olmiitz. Born, brought up, ac- 
customed to all that was refined, luxurious, and elegant, she goes 
to shut herself up in the poisonous wards of his dungeon, — to par- 
take his wretched fare ; — to share his daily repeated insults ; — to 
breathe an atmosphere so noxious and intolerable, that the gaolers 
who bring them their daily food, are compelled to cover their faces, 
as they enter their cells. 

Landing at Altona. on the 9th of September, 1795, she pro- 
ceeded with an American passport, under the family name of her 
husband (Motier), to Vienna. Having arrived in that city, she 
obtain-, through the compassionate good offices of counl Rosem- 
in interview with the emperor. Francis II is not a cruel 
man. At the age of twenty-five, he has nol yet been hardened bj 
long training in the school of state policy. He is a husband and a 
father. The hemic wife of Lafayette, with her daughters, is ad- 
mitted to his presence. She demands only to share her husband's 
prison, but she implores the emperor to restore to liberty the father 
of her children. ' He was indeed, sire, a general in the arinn - of 

republican America: but it was at a rime when the daughter of 
Maria Theresa was foremost in his praise. He was indeed a leader 
of tin French Revolution, but do1 in its excesses, not in its crime- ; 

and it was Owing tO him alone, that on the dreadful 5th of < >CtO- 
bi i. Marie Antoinette and her son had not been lorn in piece- h_\ 

the blood-thirsty populace of Paris. Heis not the prisoner of your 
justice, nor your arm-, but was thrown b_\ misfortune into your 

• The letter of Lafayette t" Colonel Perkins, written in acknowledgment of these 
services, immediately after In- liberation, ii before me. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 471 

power, when he fled before the same monsters of blood and crime, 
who brought the king and queen of France to the scaffold. Three 
of my family have perished on the same scaffold, — my aged grand- 
parent, my mother, and my sister. Will the emperor of Germany 
close the dark catalogue, and doom my husband to a dungeon 
worse than death ? Restore him, sire, not to his army, to his power, 
to his influence, but to his shattered health, his ruined fortunes, — 
to the affections of his fellow citizens in America, where he is con- 
tent to go and close his career, — to his wife and children.' 

The emperor is a humane man. He hears, considers, reasons, 
hesitates ; — tells her ' his hands are tied,'* by reasons of state, and 
permits her to shut herself up, with her daughters, in the cells of 
Olmiitz ! There her health soon fails ; she asks to be permitted 
to pass a month at Vienna, to recruit it, and is answered, that she 
may leave the prison whenever she pleases ; but if she leaves it, she 
is never again to return. On this condition, she rejects the indul- 
gence with disdain, and prepares herself to sink, under the slow 
poison of an infected atmosphere, by her husband's side. But her 
brave heart, — fit partner for a hero's, — bore her through the trial ; 
though the hand of death was upon her. She prolonged a feeble 
existence for ten years, after their release from captivity, but never 
recovered the effects of this merciless imprisonment. 

The interposition of the friends of Lafayette, in Europe and 
America, to obtain his release, was unsuccessful. On the floor of 
the House of Commons, General Fitzpatrick, on the 16th of De- 
cember, 1796, made a motion in his behalf. It was supported by 
Colonel Tarleton, who had fought against Lafayette in America, 
by Wilberforce and Fox. The speech of the latter is one of the 
most admirable specimens of eloquence ever heard in a deliberative 
assembly. But justice remonstrated, and humanity pleaded in 
vain. General Washington, then President of the United States, 
wrote a letter to the emperor of Germany. What would not the 
emperor afterwards have given, to have had the wisdom to grant 

* This remark of the emperor was the subject of severe reflection in the admira- 
ble speech in which Mr Fox endeavored to induce the British ministry to interfere 
for the liberation of Lafayette; for while the emperor had given this reason for not 
releasing him, the British minister pleaded his inability to interfere with the internal 
concerns of the German empire. 



472 KVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

the liberty of Lafayette to the entreaty of Washington ! An ad- 
vocate was at hand, who would not be refused. The Man of 
Destiny was in the field. The archduke Charles was matched 
against him, during the campaign of 1~97. The eagles of Bonar 
parte Hew from victor} to victory. The archduke display ed against 
him all the resources of the old school ; — hut the days of strategy 
were past Bonaparte stormed upon his front, threw his army 
across deep rivers, and burst upon his rear, — and annihilated the 
astonished archduke in the midst of his manoeuvres. He fought 
ten pitched battles in twenty days, drove the Austrians across the 
.Julian Alps, approached within eleven days' march of Vienna, 
and then granted the emperor, just preparing for flight into the 
recesses of Hungary, the treaty of Campio Formio, having de- 
manded, in the preliminary conferences of Leoben, the release of 
Lafayette.* Napoleon was often afterwards heard to say, that in 
all his negotiations with foreign powers, lie had never experienced 
so pertinacious a resistance, as that which was made to this de- 
mand. The Austrian envoys, at the French head-quarters, assert- 
ed that he was not in confinement in the imperial territories. Hut 
Bonaparte distrusted this assertion, and sent a former aid-de-camp 
of Lafayette to Vienna, to communicate directly with the Austrian 
minister on the subject, lie was finally released OB the 23d of 
September, 1797. But while his liberation was effected by the 
interference of the army of the republic abroad, the confiscation 
and sale of the residue of his property went on at home. 

Included in the general decree of outlawry, as an emigrant, 
Lafayette did ool go hack to France, till the directory was over- 
turned. On the establishment of the consular government, being 
restored to bis civil rights, though with the loss of nearly all bis es- 
tates, he returned t<> his native country, and sought the retirement 
of Lagrange, lie was indebted to .Napoleon for release from 

captivity, probably lor the lives of himself and family. He could 
not hut see that all hope of restoring the constitution oi' 1791, to 
which he had pledged his faith, was over, and he had ever) reason 
of intere-t and gratitude, to compound with the state of things as it 

* Bir Walter Scott, bj a somewhat singular inadvertence, states thai Lafayette 
leased 19th December, 1795, in exchange for the daughter of Look \\ I. 
afterwards dm hen of Angooleme. — Life <>f Napoh on, Vol. 1. eh, 18. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 473 

existed. But he never wavered for a moment. Bonaparte en- 
deavored, in a personal interview, to persuade him to enter the sen- 
ate, but in vain. When the question was submitted to the people 
of France, whether Bonaparte should be first consul for life, 
Lafayette gave his vote in the negative, in a letter to Napoleon, 
which has been published. Of all the ancient nobility, who re- 
turned to France, Lafayette and the young Count de Vaudreuil 
were the only individuals, who refused the favors, which Napoleon 
was eager to accord to them. Of all to whom the cross of the 
legion of honor was tendered, Lafayette alone had the courage to 
decline it. Napoleon is said to have exclaimed, when they told 
him that Lafayette refused the decoration, ' What, will nothing 
satisfy that man, but the chief command of the National Guard of 
the empire ?' Yes, much less abundantly satisfied him ; — the 
quiet possession of the poor remnants of his estate, enjoyed without 
sacrificing his principles. 

From this life nothing could draw him. Mr Jefferson offered 
him the place of governor of Louisiana, then just become a territory 
of the United States ; but he was unwilling, by leaving France, to 
take a step, that would look like a final abandonment of the cause 
of constitutional liberty on the continent of Europe. Napoleon 
ceased to importune him, and he lived at Lagrange, retired and 
unmolested, the only public man, who had gone through the 
terrible Revolution, with a character free from every just impeach- 
ment. He entered it with a princely fortune ; — in the various 
high offices which he had filled he had declined all compensation ; 
— and he came out poor. He entered it, in the meridian of early 
manhood, with a frame of iron. He came out of it, fifty years of 
age, his strength impaired by the cruelties of his long imprison- 
ment. He had filled the most powerful and responsible offices ; 
and others, still more powerful, — the dictatorship itself, — had been 
offered him ; — he was reduced to obscurity and private life. He 
entered the Revolution, with a host of ardent colleagues of the 
constitutional party ; of those who escaped the guillotine, most 
had made their peace with Napoleon. Not a few of the Jacobins had 
taken his splendid bribes ; — the emigrating nobility came back in 
crowds, and put on his livery ; fear, interest, weariness, amaze- 
ment, and apathy, reigned in France and in Europe ; — kings, 
59 



474 l\ I : RETT'S ORATIONS. 

emperors, armii s, nations, bowed art bis footstool ; — and one man 

alone — a private man. who had tasted power, and knew what he 
sacrificed; — who had inhabited dungeons, and knew what lie 
risked; — who had done enough foi liberty in both worlds, to 

satisfy the ui -t requisitions of bet friends, — this man ad • stood 

aloof in his honor his independence, — and his poverty. And if 
there is a man in this assembly, that would not rather have In tea 
Lafayette to refuse, than .Napoleon to besto* his wretched gew- 
gaws; that would not rather have been Lafayette in retirement 
and obscurity, andjusl not proscribed, than Napoleon with an em- 
peror to hold his stirrup; — if there is a man. who would not have 
preferred the honest povertj of Lagrange to the bloody tinsel of 
St Cloud: — that would not rather have shared the peaceful fire- 
side of the friend of Washington, than have spurred his triumphant 
courser over the crushed and blackened heaps of slain, through the 
fire and carnage of Marengo and Austerlitz, that man has not an 

American heart in bis bosom. 'That man is a slave, and lit to he 

the father of slaves. He docs not deserve to breathe the pure air. 
to drink the cold springs, to tread the green fields, and hear the 
Sabbath bells of a free country. He ought, with all his garters, 
ribbons, and stars upon him, to he bolted, with a golden chain, to 
the blazing pavement of a palace COUll yard, that when his lord 

and master goes out to the hunt of beasts or of men. he may he 

there. — the slave, — to crouch down, and let bismajestj \aull from 
his shoulders to the saddle. 

But the time at length arrived which was to call Lafayette from 
his retirement, and place him again, — the veteran pilot, — at the 
helm. The colossal edifice of empire, which had been reared by 
Napoleon, crumbled by it-- own weight. The pride, the interests, 
the vanity, the patriotism, of the nation- were toodeeprj outraged 

and wounded h\ his domination. In the ancient woild. — or in the 
middle ai r <'-. — w DOSe examples he too much studied, his dynastj 
Would have Stood for Centuries. He would have founded an em- 
pire, as durable as that of Caesar or Mahomet, had he. like I In id. 
lived in an a'_ r <\ when (here was hut one centre of ei\ ilization. and 
whui it was possible lor one might) vortex of power, to draw into 

it-elf all the intelligence and capacity of the world. Bui the 
division of civilized man into several co-existing national systems, 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 475 

— all, in the main, equally enlightened and intelligent, — each 
ha vine its own pride, — its own patriotism, — its own public opinion, 
— created an obstacle too powerful for the genius of Napoleon ; — 
too strong for his arm ; too various, too widely complicated for his 
skill ; — too sturdy for his gold. Accordingly his mighty system 
went to pieces. The armies of insulted and maddened Europe 
poured down like an inundation on France. It was then that 
Lafayette appeared again upon the scene. His 'well known 
voice,' never silent when there was danger and hope for the cause 
of liberty, is heard, clear and strong, amidst the tumult of invading 
armies and contending factions. When, after the disaster of 
Waterloo, Napoleon came back in desperation to Paris, and began 
to scatter dark hints of dissolving the representative chamber, re- 
peating at Paris the catastrophe of Moscow, and thereby endeavor- 
ing to rouse the people of France to one universal and frantic 
crusade of resistance, Lafayette was the first to denounce the wild 
suggestion. He proposed a series of resolutions, setting forth that 
the independence of the nation was threatened, declaring the 
chambers a permanent body, and denouncing the instant penalties 
of high treason against all attempts to dissolve it. The same 
evening he proposed, in the secret assembly of the council of state, 
the abdication of Napoleon. The subject was again pressed the 
following day ; but the voluntary act of the Emperor anticipated 
the decision. Thus, true to the cause, to which his life was sacred, 
Lafayette was found at the tribune, in the secret council, before 
the assembled populace, and as the deputed representative of his 
distracted country in the camp of the invading enemy, — every 
where, in short, except where places of precedence were courted, 
— and money greedily clutched. Unhappily for France, all, who 
were thrown in the troubled state of the times to the head of 
affairs, were not of the same stamp. Men, who in the horrible 
national convention had voted for the death of Louis XVI, — men, 
who had stimulated and executed the worst measures of Napoleon, 
— who had shot the arrows of his police in the dark, and whetted 
the glittering sabre of his conquests ; and now that he was in the 
dust, bravely trod upon his neck ; these were the instruments, the 
confidants, the favorites of the allied powers, and of the monarch 
whom they installed over reluctant France. There was of course, 



1~<) EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

no place for Lafayette among men like these. He was not with 
them in the Revolution, and could not be with them in the Res- 
toration. He was too old to make new acquaintances. There 
was room in the cabinet and palace of Louis XVII] for men. 
that were stained with the best blood of France, not excepting lie; 
brother's; bul there was no room lor the man to whom it was more 
than once owing, that his hrother's hlood and his own had not 
flowed together in the streets of Paris. 

Bui when, under the Restoration, the representative system was 
established in France, there was a place, a fitting place, for him, 
at tin' tribune ; a faithful representative of the people, a friend of 
liberty regulated and protected by law, an enemy of usurpation at 
home and abroad, not le-s than of the bloody reactions to which it 
leads. From his Srsl appearance in the chamber, to the last hour 
of his life, In- is found at bis post, the able, the eloquent, the con- 
sistenl champion of the principles, to which from his youth he had 
been devoted. 

His re-appearance on the scene, as the active expounder and 
champion of constitutional liberty, was not unobserved by the 
people of the United States. A generation had arisen, who had 
read the storj of his services ami heard their fathers speak with 
affection of hi- person. They were anxious themselves to behold 
the friend of their fathers : and to exhibit to him the spectacle of 
the prosperity he had done so much to establish. A resolution 
d the two houses of Congress unanimously, requesting the 
Presidenl to invite him to visit the United States. In conveying 
this imitation. Mr Monroe informed Lafayette that the North 
Carolina ship of the line, was ordered to bring him to America. 
With characteristic modesty, he declined the offer of a public 

vessel, and with his son and secretary, took passage on board one 
of the packet >hi|i>. between .New -York and lla\re. He ar- 
rived at New-York on the 15th of August, 1824, jusl forty years 
from the time of his landing in the same city, on occasion of 
hi- \i-it to tin; I cited States, after the close ol the revolutionarj 

war. 

\ "\\ need not. fellow citizens, that I should repeal to you the 
incidents of thai most extraordinary triumphal progress through tin 
< iirv. Tin} Rre fresh in your recollection ; and history ma) 1" 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 477 

searched in vain for a parallel event. His arrival in the United 
States seemed like the re-appearance of a friendly genius, on the 
theatre of his youthful and beneficent visitations. He came back 
to us from long absence, from exile and from dungeons, almost like 
a beloved parent rising from the dead. His arrival called out the 
whole population of the country to welcome him, but not in the 
stiff uniform of a parade, or the court dress of a heartless ceremony. 
Society, in all its shades and gradations, crowded cordially around 
him, all penetrated with one spirit, — the spirit of admiration and 
love. The wealth and luxury of the coast, the teeming abundance 
of the west ; — the elegance of the town, the cordiality of the coun- 
try ; — the authorities, municipal, national, and state ; the living 
relics of the Revolution, honored in the honors paid to their com- 
panion in arms ; — the scientific and learned bodies, the children at 
the schools, the associations of active life and of charity ; the exiles 
of Spain, France and Switzerland ; — banished kings ; — patriots of 
whom Europe was not worthy ; and even the African and Indian ; 
— every thing in the country, that had life and sense, took a part 
in this auspicious drama of real life. 

Had the deputed representatives of these various interests and 
conditions been assembled, at some one grand ceremonial of re- 
ception, in honor of the illustrious visitor, it would, even as the 
pageant of a day, have formed an august spectacle. It would even 
then have outshone those illustrious triumphs of Rome, where con- 
quered nations and captive princes followed in the train, which 
seemed with reason almost to lift the frail mortal thus honored, 
above the earth, over which he was borne. But when we con- 
sider, that this glorious and purer triumph was co-extensive with 
the Union, — that it swept majestically along, from city to city and 
from state to state, — one unbroken progress of rapturous welcome ; 
— banishing feuds, appeasing dissensions, hushing all tumults but 
the acclamations of joy, — uniting in one great act of public saluta- 
tion, the conflicting parties of a free people, on the eve and 
throughout the course of a strenuous contest, — with the aura 
epileptica of the canvass already rushing over the body politic, — 
that it was continued near a twelvemonth, an annus mirabilis of re- 
joicing, auspiciously commenced, successfully pursued, and happily 
and gracefully accomplished, we perceive in it a chapter in human 



\~- EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

affairs equally singular, delightful, instructive, and without ex- 
ample. 

But let no one think it was a light and unreflecting movement of 
popular caprice. There was enough in the character and fortunes 
of the man. to sustain and justify it. In addition to a rare endow- 
ment of personal qualities, sufficient for an ample assignment of mer- 
it, in a dozen greal men of the common stamp, — it was necessary 
toward the production of such an effect on the puhlic mind, that 
numberless high and singular associations should have linked his 
name, with all the greal puhlic movements of half a century. It 
was oecessarj that, in a venerable age, he should have come out 
of a long succession of labors, trials, and disasters, of which a much 
smaller portion is commonly sufficient to break down the health 
and spirits, and send the wcar_\- victim, discouraged and heart-sick, 
to an early retreat. It was necessary that he should, in the out- 
let, taking age, and circumstances, and success into consideration, 
have done that for this far distant land, which was never done for 
any country in the world. Having performed an arduous, a dan- 
gerous, an honorable and triumphant part in our Revolution, — it- 
selfan event of high and transcendent character, — it was necessary, 
that, pursuing at home the path of immortal renown on which his 
feel had laid hold in America, be should have engaged among the 
foremost, in that stupendous Revolution, in his own country, where 
tod sad but unshaken, amidst the madness of an empire; faith- 
ful to liberty when all else were faithless; true to her holy cause, 
when the crimes and horrors committed in her name made the 
brave fear and the good loathe it ; innocent and pure in that • open 
lull, ringing with agony and blasphemy, smoking with suffering 
and crime.' Jt was necessary to the feeling, with which Lafayette 
was received in this country, that the people should remember how 
he was received in Prussia and Austria; how, when barely esca- 
ping from the edge of the Jacobin guillotine at Paris, he was gen- 
erously bolted down into the underground caverns of Magdeburg ; 
and shul up to languish for years with his wife and daughter, in a 
pestiferous dungeon, by an emperor who had to thank him alone, 
that In- father's sister had not been torn limb from limb, b] the 
poissardet <>\ Paris. It was necessary to justifj the enthusiasm, 
with which Lafayette was welcomed to republican Vmerica, that 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 479 

when another catastrophe had placed the Man of Fate on the 
throne of France, and almost of Europe, Lafayette alone, not in a 
convulsive effort of fanatical hardihood, but in the calm conscious- 
ness of a weight of character which would bear him out in the step, 
should, deliberately and in writing, refuse to sanction the power, 
before which the contemporary generation quailed. When again 
the wheel of empire had turned, and this dreadful colossus was 
about to be crushed beneath the weight of Europe, (mustered 
against him more in desperation than self-assured power,) and in falling 
had dragged down to earth the honor and the strength of France, 
— it was necessary, when the dust and smoke of the contest had 
blown off, that the faithful sentinel of liberty should be seen again 
at his post, ready once more to stake life and reputation in another 
of those critical junctures, when the stoutest hearts are apt to retire, 
and leave the field to desperate men, — the forlorn hope of affairs, — 
whom recklessness or necessity crowds up to the breach. But to 
refute every imputation of selfishness, — of a wish to restore himself 
to the graces of restored royalty, — himself the only individual of 
continental Europe, within the reach of Napoleon's sceptre, who 
refused to sanction his title, — it was necessary that he should be 
coldly viewed by the reappearing dynasty, and that he should be 
seen and heard, — not in the cabinet or the antechamber, swarming 
with men whom Napoleon had spangled with stars, but at the tri- 
bune ; the calm, the rational, the ever consistent advocate of lib- 
erty and order, a representative of the people, in constitutional 
France. It was there I first saw him. I saw the marshals of Na- 
poleon gorged with the plunder of Europe, and stained with its 
blood, borne on their flashing chariot wheels through the streets 
of Paris. I saw the ministers of Napoleon filling the highest 
posts of trust and honor under Louis XVIII ; and I saw the 
friend of Washington, glorious in his noble poverty, looking down 
from the dazzling height of his consistency and his principles, on 
their paltry ambition and its more paltry rewards. 

But all this, — much as it was, — was not all that combined to in- 
sure to Lafayette the respect, the love, the passionate admiration of 
the people, to whom he had consecrated the bloom of his youth ; 
— for whom he had lavished his fortune and blood. These were 
the essentials, but they were not all. In order to give even to the 



1-0 I \ I. RETT'S ORATIONS. 

common mind a topic of pleasing and fanciful contrast, where the 
strongest mind found enough to command respect and astonish- 
ment ; in order to make up a character, in which even the ingre- 
dients of romance were mingled with the loftiest and sternest vir- 
tues, it was necessary that the just and authentic titles to respect which 
we have considered, should be united in an individual, who de- 
rived his descent from the ancient chivalry of France; — that he 
should have been born within the walls of a feudal castle; that the 
patient volunteer who laid his head contentedly on a wreath of 
snow, beneath the tattered canvass of a tent at Valley Forge, 
should have come fresh from the gorgeous canopies of Versailles ; 
that be should abandon all that a false ambition could covet, as 
well as attain all that a pure ambition could prize; and thus begin 
life by trampling under foot that which Chatham accepted, which 
Burke did not refuse, — and for which the mass of eminent men in 
Europe barter health, comfort, and conscience. 

Such was the man whom the Congress of the United States in- 
vited to our shores, to gather in the rich harvest of a people's love. 
Well might he do it. He had sown it in weakness, — should he not 
reap it in power? He had come to us, a poor and struggling colon \ . 
and risked his life and shed his blood in our defence, — was it not 
just, that lie should come again in his age, to witness the Bruits of 
his labors, to rejoice with the veteran companions of his service, 
and to receive the benediction of the children, as he had received 

that of the father- ? 

But the delightful vision passes. He return- to France to reap- 
pear in the chamber of deputies, the still consistent champion of re- 
form, both at home and throughout Europe. His extraordinary 

reception in the I nited State- had given an added weight to his 

counsels, which nothing could withstand. It raised him into a new 

moral power in the State: — an inofficial dictator of principle; a 

representative of the public opinion of the friends of libertj in the 

whole world. — a pei'-onaliou of the Spirit of reform. At the clo-e 

ol the session of L829, on occasion of a \i-it to the place of \n< 
birth, in the ancient province of \uvrpjii', hi- progress through 
the country was the counterpart of hi- tour through the United 
State-. In the towns and villages on his way, he was received in 
triumph. Arches arose over his venerable head. — the population 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 4S1 

gathered round him at the festive board, and the language of the 
addresses made to him, and of his replies, was of startling signifi- 
cance. It was a moment, you may remember, in France, when 
the tide of reform seemed flowing backwards. Some of the worst 
abuses of the ancient regime were openly re-established. The 
ministry was filled with some of the most obnoxious of the emigrant 
nobility. The expedition to Algiers gave no small eclat to the 
administration, feeble and odious as it was ; — and on a superficial 
view it seemed, that the entire fruit of the immense sacrifices, which 
France had made for constitutional liberty, was about to be wres- 
ted from her. Such, I own, for a short time, was my own appre- 
hension. But the visit of Lafayette to the south of France con- 
vinced me, that there was no ground for despondence. I saw 
plainly, that either by way of awakening the slumbering spirit of 
resistance, or because he saw that it was awakened and demanded 
sympathy and encouragement ; either to excite or guide the public 
mind, the sagacious veteran was on the alert ; and that language, 
such as he was daily addressing to the people, — received in willing 
ears, — was the award of fate to the administration. In some re- 
marks, submitted to the public on the 1st of January 1830, I ven- 
tured to express myself, in the following manner : 

' When we read, in the last papers from France, the account 
of the present state of things in that kingdom ; when we notice the 
irresistible onset made upon the ministry and the visible perturba- 
tion of its ranks, it is impossible wholly to suppress the idea, that 
another great change is at hand. When we see the spontaneous 
movement of the people toward the person of Lafayette, the glow- 
ing zeal with which they have turned an excursion of business into 
another triumphant progress, strewing his way with honors, such as 
loyal France never paid to her most cherished princes, we cannot 
but think, that, in the language of the venerable Spanish priest at 
New-Orleans, he is still reserved for great achievements. The 
feelings of men inspire their actions ; public sentiment governs 
states ; and revolutions are the out-breakings of mighty, irrepressible 
passions. It is in vain to deny, that these passions are up in 
France, and happy is it that they have concentrated themselves 
upon a patriot, whom prosperity has been as little able to corrupt, 
as adversity to subdue.' 
60 



482 EVERETT'S ORATION s. 

What was vague foreboding on the first of January, was history 
by the last of July. On that day. Charles X and his family, who 
had learned oothing, and forgotten nothing, in thirty years of ban- 
ishment and exclusion, were on their wa) to the frontier, and La- 
fayette was installed ai the Hotel de Ville, chief of the National 
Guards, — at the head of a new revolution. 

At the head of a new iv\ olution ? Not so. He lives, the for- 
tunate man. to see the firsl revolution. — emerging from years of 
abuse and seas of blood, — and approaching its peaceful consum- 
mation. A weak and besotted prince, who had attempted, bj i 

monstrous act of executive usurpation, to repeal the entire charter, 
and had thus produced a revolt, in which six thousand lives were lost, 
— is permitted, unmolested, and in safety, to leave the city, where, 
twenty-seven years before, his innocent brother had been dragged to 
the scaffold. A dynast} is changed, w ith the promptitude and order 
of an election. And when the critical period comes on, for the 
trial of the guilty ministers, — the responsible advisers of the meas- 
ures which had drenched Paris in blood, — Lafayette is able, bj the 
influence of his venerable authority, and the exercise of his milita- 
ry command, to prevent the effusion of blood, and save their for- 
feited liv( -. 

In these, bis successful efforts, to prevenl the late revolution 
from assuming a sanguinary character, I own I cannot but think, 
thai our revered Lafayette did as much for the cause of liberty, as 
by all his former efforts and sacrifices. There is nothing more ef- 
ficacious in reconciling men to the continued existence of corrupt 
forms of government, than the fear, that when once the work of 
revolution is undertaken, blood of necessity begins to flow in tor- 
rents. It was the reign of terror which reconciled men to the 
of Napoleon, — and it is the dread of seeing its scenes n acted 
in \u>ti'ia. in Prussia, and in Russia, which prevents the intelli- 
•_■ nee ot" those countries from engaging in earnest, in the work of 
radical reform. 

In all the steps of the recent revolution in France, so long as 
there was responsibility to be assumed or danger to be braved, 
Lafayette was its leader. It is plain, from documents before the 
world, that he could have organized the government on the repub- 
lican model, and placed himself at its head. Although, in refrain- 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 483 

ing from this, it may be justly said, that he abstained from a course 
for which his advanced age, — his pledged disinterestedness, — and 
the consistency of his whole life unfitted him ; it is not the less 
true, that in deciding for an hereditary executive, with a legislature 
chosen by the people, or, in his own language, a monarchy sur- 
rounded by republican institutions, he acted up to the principles, 
with which he commenced his political course. There is as much 
truth as point in the remark ascribed to Charles X, on his way to 
the sea-coast, ' that he and Lafayette were the only consistent men 
of the day.' 

Born for mighty constitutional movements, for the support of 
great principles, to take the direction in critical junctures of affairs, 
— but absolutely insensible to the love of power or money, or the 
passion for place, Lafayette's functions were exhausted, as soon as 
the new government was organized. He re-created the National 
Guard, which he had called into being in 1789, and in which lay 
the germ of the victories of Napoleon, — placed a constitutional 
crown, without commotion or bloodshed, on the head of the duke 
of Orleans, — and carried the government through the crisis of the 
trial of the ministers. Having performed these great services to 
the country, — and disdaining to enter into the petty politics which 
succeed a great movement, — the scramble for office and the rival- 
ries of small men, — he laid down his commission as commander-in- 
chief of the National Guards, and confined himself to his duties, 
as a representative of the people, and to the exercise of his moral 
influence, as the acknowledged chief of the constitutional party on 
the continent of Europe. 

In the course of the last spring, our beloved benefactor, in at- 
tending the funeral of a colleague in the chamber of deputies, from 
long exposure to the dampness of the air and ground, contracted 
a cold, which settled on his lungs ; and which, though deemed 
slight at first, gradually assumed a serious aspect. After a pro- 
tracted struggle with the remains of a once vigorous constitution, 
the disease became alarming ; but not, as was supposed, critical, 
till the 19th of May. On that day, by a mark of public sympa- 
thy never perhaps paid before to a private citizen, the chamber of 
deputies directed their president to address a note to Mr G. W. 
Lafayette, inquiring after the health of his venerable parent. At 



484 I \ K RETT'S ORATIONS. 

the time of this inquiry, the symptoms of the disease were less 
alarming, but an unfavorable change soon took place; and on the 
following day, the illustrious sufferer, — the patriarch of liberty, — 
died, in the seventy-seventh year of his age. He was buried, bj his 
<>u ii direction, not « ithin the \ aults of the Pantheon, — not among the 
great and illustrious that people the silent alleys of Pere la Chaise, 
but in a rural cemetery near Paris, by the side of her who had 
shared his pure love of liberty, his triumphs, his dungeon, and his 
undying renown. In a secluded garden, in this humble retreat, 
beneath the shade of a row of linden trees, between his wife and 
his daughter, the friend of Washington and America, has lain down 
to his last repose. 

I attempt not, fellow citizens, to sketch his character. 1 have 
no space, no capacity, for the task. 1 have endeavored to run 
over, — superficially, of necessity, — the incidents of his life; his 
character is contained in the recital. 

There have been those who have denied to Lafayette the name 
of a great mini. What is greatness? Does goodness belong to 
greatness, and make an essential part of it? If it does, who I 
would ask, of all the prominent names in history, has run through 
such a career, with so little reproach, justly or unjustly, he-tow ed : 
\ military courage and conduct the measure of greatness? La- 
fayette was entrusted bj Washington with all kind- of service; — 
the laborious and complicated, which required skill and patience. 
the perilous thai demanded nerve: — and we see bim keeping up a 
pursuit, effecting a retreat, outmanoeuvring a war) adversary with 
a superior force, harmonizing the action of French regular troops 
and American militia, commanding an assault at the point of the 

bayonet; and all with entire success and brilliant reputation. Is 

the readiness to meet yasl responsibility a proof of greatness ? The 

memoirs of Mr Jefferson -how us. as we have already -ecu, that 

there w a- a moment in L789, when Lafayette took upOO himself, 

as the head of the militarj force, the entire responsibility of laying 
down the basis of the Revolution. I- the cool and brave adminis- 
tration of gigantic power, a mark of greatness? In all the whirl- 
wind of the Revolution, and when as commander-in-chief oi the 
National Guard, an organized force of three millions of men, who. 
for any popular purpose, needed hut a wool, a look, to put them 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 485 

in motion, — and he their idol, — we behold him ever calm, collect- 
ed, disinterested ; as free from affectation as selfishness, clothed not 
less with humility than with power. Is the fortitude required to 
resist the multitude pressing onward their leader to glorious crime, 
a part of greatness ? Behold him, the fugitive and the victim, 
when he might have been the chief of the Revolution. Is the sol- 
itary and unaided opposition of a good citizen to the pretensions of 
an absolute ruler, whose power was as boundless as his ambition, 
an effort of greatness ? Read the letter of Lafayette to Napoleon 
Bonaparte, refusing to vote for him as consul for life. Is the vol- 
untary return, in advancing years, to the direction of affairs, at a 
moment like that, when in 1815, the ponderous machinery of the 
French empire was flying asunder, — stunning, rending, crushing 
thousands on every side, — a mark of greatness ? Contemplate 
Lafayette at the tribune, in Paris, when allied Europe was thun- 
dering at its gates, and Napoleon yet stood in his desperation and 
at bay. Are dignity, propriety, cheerfulness, unerring discretion 
in new and conspicuous stations of extraordinary delicacy, a sign 
of greatness ? Watch his progress in this country, in 1824 and 
1825, hear him say the right word at the right time, in a series of 
interviews, public and private, crowding on each other every day, 
for a twelvemonth, throughout the Union, with every description 
of persons, without ever wounding for a moment the self-love of 
others, or forgetting the dignity of his own position. Lastly, is it 
any proof of greatness, to be able, at the age of seventy-three, to 
take the lead in a successful and bloodless revolution ; — to change 
the dynasty, — to organize, exercise, and abdicate a military com- 
mand of three and a half millions of men ; — to take up, to perform, 
and lay down the most momentous, delicate, and perilous duties, 
without passion, without hurry, without selfishness ? Is it great, to 
disregard the bribes of title, office, money ; — to live, to labor, and 
suffer for great public ends alone ; — to adhere to principle under 
all circumstances ; — to stand before Europe and America conspic- 
uous, for sixty years, in the most responsible stations, the acknowl- 
edged admiration of all good men ? 

But I think I understand the proposition, that Lafayette was not 
a great man. It comes from the same school which also denies 
greatness to Washington, and which accords it to Alexander and 



l-'li EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

Caesar, to Napoleon and to his conqueror. When I analyze the 
greatness of these distinguished men, as contrasted with that of 
Lafayette and Washington, I find either one idea omitted, which 
is essential to true greatness, or one included as essential, which 
belongs only to the lowest conception of greatness. The 
moral, disinterested, and purely patriotic qualities arc wholly 
wanting in the greatness of Alexander and Casar; and on the 
odier hand, it is a certain splendor of success, a brilliancy of result, 
which, with the majority of mankind, marks them out as the greal 
men of our race. But not only are a high morality and a true 
patriotism essential to greatness, — hut they must first be renounced 
before a ruthless career of selfish conquest can begin. 1 profess to 
be no judge of military combinations; but, with the best reflection 
1 have been able to give the subject, 1 perceive no reason to doubt 
that, had Lafayette, like Napoleon, been by principle, capable of 
hovering on the edges of ultra-revolutionism ; never halting enough 
to be denounced ; never plunging too far to retreat; — but with a 
cold and well-balanced selfishness, sustaining himself at the head of 
afrairs, under each new phase of the Revolution, by the compli- 
ances sufficient to satisfy its demands, — he might have anticipated 
the career of Napoleon. At three differenl periods, he had it in 
bis power, without usurpation, to take the government into his own 
hands. He was invited, urged to do so. Had he dune it. and 
made use of the military means at bis command, to maintain and 
perpetuate his power. — he would then, at the sacrifice of all his 
just claims to the name of great and good, have reached that which 
vulgar admiration alone worships, — the greatness of high station 
and hrilliant success. 

But it was of the greatness of Lafayette, that he looked down 
on greatness of the false kind. He learned bis lesson in the school 
of Washington, and took his firsl practice in victories over himself. 
Lei it be questioned by the venal apologists of time-honored abuses, 
— let it be sneered at bj national prejudice and party detraction ; 
let it be denied l>_\ the admirers of war and conquest; — bj the 
idolaters of >uc<e-^. — but let it be gratefully acknowledged bj 
men ; h\ Americans, — 1>\ ever) man. who has sense to distinguish 
character from < (rents; who has a heart to heat in concert with the 
I enthu ia no ol \ nine. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 487 

But it is more than time, fellow citizens, that I commit the mem- 
ory of this great and good man to your unprompted contemplation. 
On his arrival among you, ten years ago, — when your civil fathers, 
your military, your children, your whole population poured itself 
out, as one throng, to salute him, — when your cannons proclaimed 
his advent with joyous salvos, — and your acclamations were res- 
ponded from steeple to steeple, by the voice of festal bells, with 
what delight did you not listen to his cordial and affectionate 
words ; — ' I beg of you all, beloved citizens of Boston, to accept 
the respectful and warm thanks of a heart which has for nearly 
half a century been devoted to your illustrious city !' That noble 
heart, — to which, if any object on earth was dear, that object 
was the country of his early choice, — of his adoption, and his 
more than regal triumph, — that noble heart will beat no more for 
your welfare. Cold and motionless, it is already mingling with the 
dust. While he lived, you thronged with delight to his presence, 
— you gazed with admiration on his placid features and venerable 
form, not wholly unshaken by the rude storms of his career ; and 
now that he is departed, you have assembled in this cradle of the 
liberties for which, with your fathers, he risked his life, to pay the 
last honors to his memory. You have thrown open these conse- 
crated portals to admit the lengthened train, which has come to dis- 
charge the last public offices of respect to his name. You have 
hung these venerable arches, for the second time since their erec- 
tion, with the sable badges of sorrow. You have thus associated 
the memory of Lafayette in those distinguished honors, which but 
a few years since you paid to your Adams and Jefferson ; and, 
could your wishes and mine have prevailed, my lips would this 
day have been mute, and the same illustrious voice which gave 
utterance to your filial emotions over their honored graves, would 
have spoken also, for you, over him who shared their earthly labors, 
— enjoyed their friendship, — and has now gone to share their last 
repose, and their imperishable remembrance. 

There is not, throughout the world, a friend of liberty, who has 
not dropped his head, when he has heard that Lafayette is no more. 
Poland, Italy, Greece, Spain, Ireland, the South American republics, 
— every country where man is struggling to recover his birthright, — 
has lost a benefactor, a patron, in Lafayette. But you, young men, 



488 I I K RETT'S ORATIONS. 

at whose command 1 speak, for you a bright and particular lodestar is 
Ik uri 'forward fixed in the front of heaven. What young man that 
reflects on the history of Lafayette, — that sees him in the morning 
of his days the associate of sages, — the friend of Washington, — 
but will start with new vigor on the path of duty and renown ? 

And what was it, fellow citizens, which gave to our Lafayette 
his spotless fame? The love of liberty. What has consecrated 
his memory in hearts of good men? The love of liberty. What 
nerved his youthful arm with strength, and inspired him in the 
morning of his davs. with sagacity and counsel? The living love 
of liberty. To what did he sacrifice power, and rank, and coun- 
try, and freedom itself? To the horror of licentiousness; — to the 
sanctity of plighted faith ; — to the love of liberty protected by law. 
Thus the great principle of your revolutionary fathers, of your pil- 
grim sires, the great principle of the age, was the rule of his life: 
Tin love of liberty protected Ay law. 

You have now assembled within these celebrated walls, to per- 
form the last duties of respect and love, on the birth day of your 
benefactor, beneath that roof which has resounded of old with the 
master voices of American renown. The spirit of the departed i- 
in high communion with the spirit of the place; — the temple 
worthy of the new name which we now behold inscribed on its 
walls. Li-ten. Americans, to the lesson which seems borne to us 
on the very air we breathe, while we perform these dutiful 

rite-! Ye winds, that wafted the Pilgrims to the land of pr - 

ise, fan, in their children's hearts, the love of freedom ; — 
Mood, which our fathers shed, cry from the ground ; — Echoing 
arches of this renowned hall, whisper back the voices of other 
da\ s ; — Glorious Washington, break the long silence of that votive 
canvass ; — Speak, speak, marble lips, teach us the love ok lib- 

I'.KTN PROTECTED KY l.\u ! 



ORATION 

DELIVERED AT LEXINGTON, ON THE 19TH (20th) OF APRIL, 1835, 
BY REQUEST OF THE CITIZENS OF THAT PLACE. 



Fellow Citizens, 

At the close of sixty years, we commemorate the eventful 
scenes of the opening Revolution. We have come together, to 
celebrate the affecting incidents, which have placed the name of 
this beautiful village on the first page of the history of our inde- 
pendence. The citizens of a free, prosperous, and powerful repub- 
lic, we come to pay the last honors to the memory of those who 
offered themselves up, on this spot, the first costly sacrifice in the 
cause of American liberty. In the day of our peace and safety, in 
the enjoyment of the richest abundance of public and private bles- 
sings, we have met together to summon up, in grateful recollection, 
the images of that night of trial, of fearful anticipation, of high 
and stern resolve, — and of that morning of blood, which, to the 
end of time, will render the name of Lexington sacred to the heart 
of the American freeman. 

Sixty years have passed away : — two full returns of the period 
assigned by the common consent of mankind to one of our transi- 
tory generations. I behold around me a few, — alas ! how few, — 
of those who heard the dismal voice of the alarm bell, on the 19th 
of April, 1775, and the sharp angry hiss of the death vollies from 
the hostile lines. Venerable men ! we gaze upon you with res- 
pectful emotion. You have reached an age allotted to the smallest 
portionof our race, and your gray hairs, under any circumstances, 
61 



490 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

would be entitled to our homage. As the survivors of the militia 
of Lexington, who, on the L9th of April, 1775. were enrolled in 
defence of the rights of America, and obeyed the alarm which 
called you to protect them, we regard you us objects at once of ad- 
miration and gratitude. But when we reflect that you, a small 
and venerable remnanl of those who first took the field in the dawn 
of the Revolution which wrought out the liberty of the country, 
have been spared, doi merely to see that Revolution brought to a 
triumphant close, but to witness the growth of that country to it- 
presenl palm} height of prosperity and power, we feel that you 
arc marked nut h\ a peculiar Providence, above all the rest of your 
fellow citizens. But where, oh, where are your brave associates? 
Seven of them, who, full of life, and vigor, and patriotic daring, 
stood side by side with you, sixty years ago, on this ever memo- 
rable spot, are gathered, — what is mortal of them, — in that mourn- 
ful receptacle. Other- laid down their lives for their country, in 
the hard fought and honorable fields of the revolutionary war. 
The greater pari have stolen away, one by one, and in silence. 
and lie beneath the scattered hillocks of yonder grave-yard. Twelve 
only survive, — ten alone are present, — to unite with us in the 
touching rites of this honored anniversary. May the happy con- 
trast in your own existence on the great day we commemorate, and 
on this its sixtieth return, and in the position and fortunes of our 
beloved and common country, prove an ample compensation for 
your anxieties and perils, and fill the close of your days with peace 

and j 

Fellow citizens of Lexington, you arc discharging your dutj : — 
a filial, pious duty. The blood which wet these sods on the da) 
you celebrate, must not sink uncommemorated into the soil, h is 
your birth-right; your heritage; the proudesl you possess. Its 
1 memory must be transmitted b} your citizens, from father 
to son. to the end of time. We come to join you in this solemn 

3 b, in n"t<- \. the roll of Capt Porker's companj of Lexington militia. The 
following are the names of the Borvivore, four of whom were seated on the plat- 
form from which tin- address was Bpoken: — Dr Joseph Fiske, Messrs Daniel Ma- 
Benjamin Locke, William Monroe, Jonathan Harrington, Ebenezer Simonds, 
Jonathan Loring, John Hosmer, Isaai Durant, Josiah Reed. Mr Solomon Brown 
and Ebenezer Parker were absent. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 491 

act of commemoration. Partakers of the blessings, for which your 
fathers laid down their lives, we come to join you in these last 
affecting obsequies. And when all now present shall be passing, 
— passed, — from the stage ; when sixty years hence we, who have 
reached the meridian of life, shall have been gathered to our fathers, 
and a few only of these little children shall survive, changed into 
what we now behold in the gray heads and venerable forms before 
us, let us hope that it may at least be said of us, that we felt the 
value of the principles to which the day is consecrated, and the 
cost at which they were maintained. 

We perform a duty which is sanctioned by reason and justice. 
It is the spontaneous impulse of the heart, to award the tribute of 
praise and admiration to those who have put every thing to risk, 
and sacrificed every thing in a great public cause, — who have sub- 
mitted to the last dread test of patriotism, and laid down their lives 
for their country. In the present case, it is doubly warranted, by 
the best feelings of our nature. We do not come to weave fresh 
laurels for the hero's wreath, to flatter canonized pride, to extol the 
renowned, or to add new incense to the adulation, which is ever 
offered up at the shrine of the conqueror : — but to give the humble 
man his clue, to rescue modest and untitled valor from oblivion ; — 
to record the names of those, whom neither the ambition of power, 
the hope of promotion, nor the temptation of gain, — but a plain, 
instinctive sense of patriotic duty, — called to the field. 

Nor is it our purpose to rekindle the angry passions, although 
we would fain revive the generous enthusiasm of the day we cele- 
brate. The boiling veins, — the burning nerves, — the almost mad- 
dened brain, which alone could have encountered the terrors of that 
day, have withered into dust, as still and cold as that with which 
they have mingled. There is no hostile feeling in that sacred re- 
pository. No cry for revenge bursts from its peaceful enclosure. 
Sacred relics ! Ye have not come up, from your resting-place in 
yonder grave-yard, on an errand of wrath or hatred. Ye have but 
moved a little nearer to the field of your glory ; to plead that your 
final resting-place may be on the spot where you fell ; to claim the 
protection of the sods which you once moistened with your blood. It 
is a reasonable request. There is not an American who hears me, 
1 am sure, who would profane the touching harmony of the scene, 



192 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

by an unfriendly feeling; — and if there is an Englishman present, 
who carries an Anglo-Saxon heart in his bosom, he will be among 
the last to grudge to these poor remains of gallant foes, the honors 
we this day pay to their memory. Though they fell in this remote 
transatlantic village, they stood on the solid rock of the old liber- 
ties of Englishmen, and struck for freedom in both hemispheres. 

Fellow citizens ! The historj of tin- Revolution is familiar to 
you. You are acquainted with it, in the general and in its details. 
¥ou know it as. a comprehensive whole, embracing, within its 
grand outline, the settlement and the colonization of the country, 
— the development, maturity, and rupture of the relations between 
(iicai Britain and America. You know it, in the controversy 
carried on for nearly a hundred and fifty years between the repre- 
sentative- of the people and the officers of the crown. You know 
it in the characters of the great men. who signalized themselves as 
the enlightened and fearless leaders of the righteous and patriotic 
cause. You know it in the thrilling incidents of the crisis, when 
the appeal was made to arms. You know it. — you have studied 
it. — you revere it, as a mighty epoch in human affairs: a Lfreat era 
in that ordei of Providence, which, from the strange conflict of 
human passions and interests, and the various and wonderfully 
complicated agency of the institutions of men in society. — of in- 
dividual character. — of exploits, — discoveries, — commercial ad- 
venture, — the discourses and writings of wise and eloquent men. — 
educes the progressive civilization of the race. Under these cir- 
cumstances, it is scarcel) possible to approach the subject in any 
direction, with a well grounded hope of presenting it in new lights, 
or saying an) thing in which this intelligent and patriotic audience 

will not run before me, and anticipate the word- before they drop 
from my lips. !>ut it is a theme that can never tire nor wear out. 
God granl thai the time may never come, when those who, at 
periods however distant, shall address you on the L9th of April. 

shall have anv thing wholl) new to impart. Let the tale be re- 
peated, from father to son, till all its thrilling incidents arc as 

familiar as household wonb ; and till the names of the brave men 
who reaped the blood) honors of the L 9th of April. L 775, are as 
w ell know n to us, as the names of those w ho form the circle at our 

lire- ! 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 493 

The events of the day we commemorate, of course, derive their 
interest from their connexion with that struggle for constitutional 
liberty, which dates from the settlement of the country ; and which 
is beyond question the most important topic, in the history of free 
government. It presents to us a spectacle worthy of the deepest 
meditation, — full of solemn warning, and of instruction not yet ex- 
hausted. We are, at times, almost perplexed, with the phenomena 
which pass before us. We see our ancestors ; — a people of singular 
gravity of character, not turbulent nor impracticable, imbued with 
an hereditary love of order and law, and of a temper signally loyal ; 
engaged in a course of almost uninterrupted opposition to the 
authority of a government, which they professed themselves at all 
times bound to obey. On the other hand, we see the British 
government, under all administrations, — whether animated by 
liberal principles or the reverse, — adopting measures and pursuing 
a policy toward the North American colonies, which excited dis- 
content and resistance. It is not till after careful scrutiny, that we 
find the solution of the problem, in a truth, which, — though our 
fathers, some of them at least, unquestionably felt its reality, — was 
never professed in any stage of the contest, till the declaration of 
independence, and then not as a general axiom, but as a proposi- 
tion true in the then present case, viz., the inherent incongruity 
of colonial government with the principles of constitutional liberty. 
Such a government, — involving, as it almost of necessity does, the 
distance of the seat of power from the colony, — a veto on the co- 
lonial legislation, — an appeal from the colonial justice, — a diversion 
of the colonial resources to objects not necessarily connected with 
the welfare of the people, — together with the irritation produced 
by the presence of men in high office, not appointed by those 
who are obliged to submit to their authority, — seems, in its very 
nature, inconsistent with the requirements of constitutional liberty, 
either in the colony or the mother country. It is but half the 
mischief of the colonial system, that it obstructs the growth of free- 
dom in the colony ; it favors the growth of arbitrary power in the 
mother country. It may be laid down as the moral of the long 
and varied struggle, which was brought to a crisis on this spot, on 
the 19th of April, 1775, that a colonial government can neither 
be exercised on principles of constitutional liberty, without gross 



494 KVKRKTT'S ORATIONS. 

inconsistency, nor submitted to l>y ;i free people, possessing numbers 
and resources which authorize resistance. 

The truth of this doctrine shines brighter and brighter, from each 
successive page of our colonial history. The vu\ genius of the 
British constitution, — the love of liberty, which was our fathers' 
inheritance, the passionate aversion to arbitrary power, which 
drove them into banishment from the pleasant fields of England, — 
unfitted them for their colonial position and its duties. For this 
reason, the cares of the mother country were as wisely he-towed 
on the colonies, as those of the hunt-man in the ancient drama, 
who nursed the lion's whelp in his bosom, and brought him up as 
the playmate of his children. It was the nature, not the vice of 
the ooble animal, that, tame and gentle a- a lamb at the beginning, 
he gr< w up to the strength and boldness of a lion, impatient of 
restraint, indignant at injury, and ready, at the first opportunity, to 
bound off to his native woods.* 

From this condition of things it resulted, that the statesmen on 
both sides the water. — as well in England as in America, — who 
took a had in public affairs, were, to use the language of modern 
politics, in a false position, striving to do what could not be done ; 
— to tax constitutionally without a representation, and to preserve 
allegiance in despite of everlasting opposition. It was one cons* - 
quence of this unnatural state of things, thai the real ground of 
the discontents was continually misapprehended, — that they were 
ascribed to temporary, local, and personal causes, — and not to the 
inherent nature of the process which was going on, and of the im- 
possibility of a cordial union of elements so discordant. This is 
peculiarly visible in the writings of Governor Hutchinson. This 
\ aluable historian w as on the stage for the entire generation preced- 
ing the Revolution. For more than thirtj years before it broke 
out. he was a political leader in Massachusetts. From the close of 
the French war to the year L775, he was probably the mosl con- 
fidential adviser of the crown ; and for the chief part of the time 
the incumbent of the highesl offices in its gift. He has broughl 
the historj of bis native State down to the verj moment, when, on 
the eve of the war, he lefl America, never to return. Learned, 
sagacious, wary, conciliatory, and trongl) disposed, as fir as pos- 

■ chyl. Vgamemn 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 495 

sible, to evade the difficulties of his position; no man had better 
opportunities of knowing the truth, and after making proper allow- 
ance for his prejudices, few are entitled to greater credit in their 
statements. And yet, with all the sources of information in his 
reach, and all the opportunities enjoyed by him to arrive at an en- 
larged conception of the nature of the controversy, Governor 
Hutchinson seriously traces the origin of the Revolution to the fact 
that he himself was appointed chief justice, instead of James Otis, 
who aspired to the place.* 

But a more signal instance of this delusion was of much older 
date, than the opposition to the stamp act. The government par- 
ty never understood the character of the people nor the nature of 
the contest; and a most memorable proof of this is found, in an act 
of provincial legislation, at the early period of 1694. In that year 
a step was taken by the court party, which showed, in a most ex- 
traordinary manner, the extent of their infatuation. Before this 
time, it had been the practice in many of the country towns to elect, 
as their representatives to the General Court, citizens of Boston, 
who, either from being natives of the towns or for any other cause, 
possessed the confidence of those, by whom they were thus chosen. 
A number of members of this class, having voted against an ad- 
dress to his Majesty, praying the continuance of Sir William Phips 
in office, the Court party immediately brought forward and carried a 
law, forbidding the election of any person as a representative, who 
did not reside in the town, by which he was chosen. Provision was 
thus made by law to compel the towns, even if otherwise disinclined 
to do so, to take an interest in public affairs; and to secure from their 
own bosom a constant and faithful representation of the yeomanry. 
This was a court measure, designed to disqualify a few popular 
citizens of Boston, who had been elected for the country ; but it may 
be doubted whether any thing else contributed more, to carry the 
great constitutional controversy home to the doors of every citizen 
of the community, and to link together the town and country, by the 
strongest bonds of political sympathy, 

I need but allude to the measures, by which the Revolution was 

* From an anecdote preserved by Dr Eliot, (Biograph. Diet. Art. Hutchinson), 
it would appear, on the authority of Judge Trowbridge, that Otis also viewed the 
question in the same connexion with his own personal relations to it. 



496 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

at last brought on. The Boston Port Hill was ;i proof, that the 
British ministry had determined to force matters to extremities : 
and it awakened the liveliesl sympathy, in the fate of Boston, from 
one end of the continent to the other. The acts of Parliament pas- 
sed in 1771, for altering the mode of summoning juries and trans- 
porting obnoxious persons to England for trial, were direct viola- 
tions of the charter: and indicated the dangerous policy of striking 
at the lives of individuals, under color of legal procedure. Noth- 
ing produces so <iieat an exasperation, as this policy, and no policy 
is so weak : for the most insignificant individual is made important 
by proscription, while few are so gifted, but their blood will prove 
more eloquent than their pens or their toumies. These threaten- 
ing steps, on the part of the ministry, did hut hasten the prepara- 
tion- for resistance, on the part of the people of America. A con- 
tinental Congress was organized in 171 Land a provincial Congress 
met. about the same time, in .Massachusetts. Before the close of 
that year, the latter body had made arrangements for a lew of 
twelve thousand men in Massachusetts, as her -hare of twentj 
thousand to he raised by the New England colonic-, and one fourth 
of the number to act as minute men. Uv the same authority, 
magazines were established, — arms and munitions of war procured, 
and supplies of all kinds provided for a state of actual service. 
The greatest attention was paid to drilling and exercising the troops, 
particularly in the portion- of the province, immediately contiguous 
to Concord and Worcester, where the military depots were estab- 
lished. A committee of safl tj and a committee of supplies were 
clothed with the chief executive power. General officers, — princi- 
pally the veterans of the French war, — were appointed to command 
the troop-. A- thermal forces in Boston were in the habit of 
making excursions into the neighboring country, for parade and ex- 
ercise, it became necessarj to decide the question, when they 
should he met with forcible resistance. It was resolved bj the pro- 
vincial Congress, that this should he done, whenever the troop- 
caine out with baggage, ammunition, and artillery, and other prep- 
aration- for ho-tile action. Having thus made provision for the 
worst, the provincial Congress ofMassachusetts adjourned early in 
1 December, 1" 1. to 'jive the members an opportunity to keep the 
stated thanksgiving with their families; — and among thecal 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 497 

gratitude to Almighty God, even at this dark and anxious period, 
which are set forth in the proclamation of the provincial Congress, 
they call upon the people to be devoutly thankful for the union of 
sentiment, which prevailed so remarkably in the colonics. 

The situation of Massachusetts, at that time, presents a most 
striking and instructive spectacle. It contained a population, not 
far from three hundred thousand ; arrested in the full career of indus- 
trious occupation in all the branches of civilized pursuit. Their 
charter was substantially abrogated by the new laws. Obedience 
was every where withheld from the arbitrary powers assumed by 
the government. The proclamations of the governor were treated 
with silent disregard. The port of Boston is shut, and with it 
much of the commerce of the province is annihilated ; for the neigh- 
boring seaport towns vie with each other, in a generous refusal to 
take advantage of the distresses of Boston. The courts are closed, 
and the innumerable concerns, which, in an ordinary state of things, 
require the daily and hourly interposition of the law, are placed 
under the safe guardianship of the public sentiment of a patriotic 
community. The powers assumed by the committees of safety 
and supplies, and by the provincial Congress, are obeyed, with a 
ready deference, never yielded, in the most loyal times, to the legal 
commands of the king's governors. The community, in a word, 
is reduced, — no, is elevated, — to a state of nature : — to a state of 
nature, in a high and solemn sense, in which the feeling of a great 
impending common danger, and the consciousness of an exalted 
and resolute common purpose, take the place, at once and with full 
efficacy, of all the machinery of constitutional government. It is 
thus that a people, fit for freedom, may get the substance before 
the forms of liberty. Luxury disappears; a patriotic frugality ac- 
cumulates the scattered elements of the public wealth ; — feuds are 
reconciled ; — differences compromised ; — the creditor spares his 
debtor ; — the debtor voluntarily acquits his obligations ; — an un- 
seen spirit of order, resource, and power walks, like an invisible 
angel, through the land ; — and the people, thoughtful, calm, and 
collected, await the coming storm. 

The minds of the people throughout the country, had become 
thoroughly imbued with the great principles of the contest. These 
principles had for years been discussed at the primary meetings in 
62 



198 I \ l.KF.TT'S ORATIONS. 

Massachusetts ; and the municipal records <>I many of the town-. 
al thai period, arc filled with the mosl honorable proofs of the in- 
telligence and patriotism of their citizens. The town of Lexing- 
ton stands second to none in an early, strenuous, and able vindi- 
cation of the rights of the colonies. In the year L765, a very 
conclusive exposition of the question on the stamp acl was adopt- 
ed bj the town, in the form of instructions to their representative 
in the General Court. Ii is a paper not inferior to the best of the 
day. In L767, the town expressed its unanimous concurrence, in 
the measures adopted bj Boston, to prevent the consumption of 
foreign commodities. In L768, a preamble and resolutions were 
adopted l>\ the town, in which the right of Greal Britain to tax 
America is argued with extraordinary skill and power. In L772, 
their representative was furnished with instructions, expressed in 
the most forcible term-, to seek a redress of the daily increasing 
wrongs of the people. The object of these instructions is declar- 
ed to he. that •thus, whether successful or not, succeeding genera- 
tions may know thai we understood our rights and liberties, and 
were neither afraid nor ashamed to assert or maintain them : and 
that we ourselves raaj have al leasl this consolation, in our chain-. 
that it was not through our neglect, thai this people were enslaved.'* 
In L 773, resolutions ol the most decided and animated character, 
wi re unanimously passed, relative to the duty on tea. At numer- 
ous town meetings toward the close of l"i" 1. measures were taken 
for a supply of ammunition, the purchase and distribution of arm-. 
and other measures of military defence. A representative was 
chosen to the provincial Congress, and the town's tax directed to 
he paid, not to the royal receiver general, bul to the treasurer ap- 
pointed hv the provincial Congress. 

Although the part thus taken by Lexington was in full accord- 
ance with the course pursued 1>\ main other towns in the province, 
there is nothing invidious in the remark, that the documents to 
which I have referred, and in which the principle- and opinion- ol 
the town are embodied, have lew equals ami no superiors, among 
the productions of that class. Tlay are well known to have pro- 
d from the pen of the former venerable pastor of the church 

■ Lexington Tow n Record*, Pol. '-0J». 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 499 

in this place, the Reverend Jonas Clark, who for many years pre- 
vious to the Revolution, and to the close of his life, exercised a 
well-deserved ascendency in the public concerns of the town. To 
the older part of the citizens of Lexington it were needless to de- 
scribe him: — they remember too well the voice, to which, within 
these walls, they listened so long with reverence and delight. 
Even to those who are too young to have known him, the tradition 
of his influence is familiar. Mr Clark was of a class of citizens, 
who rendered services second to no other, in enlightening and ani- 
mating the popular mind on the great questions at issue, — I mean 
the patriotic clergy of New-England. The circumstances under 
which this portion of the country was settled, gave a religious com- 
plexion to the whole political system. The vigorous growth of 
transatlantic liberty was owing, in no small degree, to the fact, 
that its seed was planted at the beginning, by men, who deemed 
freedom of conscience a cheap purchase at any cost; and that its 
roots struck deep into the soil of Puritanism. Mr Clark was emi- 
nent in his profession, — a man of practical piety, — a learned theo- 
logian, — a person of wide, general reading, — a writer perspicuous, 
correct; and pointed, beyond the standard of the day, — and a most 
intelligent, resolute, and ardent champion of the popular cause. 
He was connected by marriage with the family of John Hancock. 
To this circumstance, no doubt, may properly be ascribed some 
portion of his interest in the political movements of the time ; — 
while on the mind of Hancock, an intimacy with Mr Clark was 
calculated to have a strong and salutary influence. Their connex- 
ion led to a portion of the interesting occurrences of the 19th of 
April, 1775. The soul-stirring scenes of the great tragedy which 
was acted out on this spot, were witnessed by Mr Clark, from the 
door of his dwelling hard by. To perpetuate their recollection, 
he instituted, the following year, a service of commemoration. He 
delivered himself, an historical discourse of great merit, which was 
followed on the returns of the anniversary, till the end of the rev- 
olutionary war, in a series of addresses in the same strain, by the 
clergy of the neighboring towns. Mr Clark's instructive and elo- 
quent narrative, in the appendix to the discourse, remains to this 
day one of the most important authorities for this chapter, in the 
history of the Revolution. 



•">(>() RETT'S ORATIONS. 

h in;i\ excite some surprise, thai so great alacrity was evinced 
in the work of military preparation, bj the town of Lexington, and 
oilier towns similarly situated in the colonies. How are we to ac- 
count for the extraordinary fact, thai a village not of the first class 
in size, and not in any respecl so circumstanced as n> require its 
citizens to stand forth, in the position of military resistance, should 
!n\e taken such prompt and vigorous measures of a warlike char- 
acter? This is a fact to be explaiiu d by a recurrence to the ear- 
lier history of the colonies. It is a truth, to which sufficient atten- 
tion has not. perhaps, been given, ill connexion with the historj of 

the Revolution, that in the two preceding wars between Greal 
Britain and France, the colonics had taken a very active and im- 
portant part. The military records of those wars, as far as the 
province of Massachusetts Bay are concerned, are still in existence. 
The original muster rolls an preserved in the State House at Bos- 
ton. I have examined a greal many of them. They prove that 
the people of Massachusetts, between the years 1755 and I7<>.'}. 
performed an amount of military service, probably never exacted 
ol any other people, living under a governmenl professing to be 
fn e. Not a village in .Massachusetts, hut sent its sons to la) their 
in the West Indies, iu Nova Scotia, and the Canadian wil- 
derness. Judge Minot stall-, that in the year L757, one third 
part of the effective men ol' Massachusetts were, in some wa\ or 
other, in the field, and that the taxes imposed on real property in 

i. a i noun ted to two thirds of the income. In 1759, the Gen- 
eral Court, by waj of excusing themselves to Governor Pownall 
for falling short of the military requisitions of that year, informed 
him. that the military service of the preceding year had amounted 
to one million of dollars. They nevertheless raised that year six 
thousand eighl hundred men: a force which contributed most es- 
sentially to the achievement of the -real objecl of the campaign, — 

duction of Quebec. The population of Massachusetts and 
Maine, at that time, might have been half the presenl population 
of Massachusetts ; the amount of taxable property beyond all pro- 
port'u n ' < . I !> i'!i' the hardships ol poluntarj sen ice, tin 
distre sing levies were made on the towns bj impressment] 

hv all tin f martial law . 

These are not tiie mosl affe< tins documi nts in our archivi 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 501 

show the nature of that school of preparation, in which the men of 
1775 were reared. Those archives are filled with the tears of 
desolate widows and bereaved parents. After the disastrous capit- 
ulation of Fort William Henry, in 1757, the governor of Massa- 
chusetts invited those who had relatives carried into captivity among 
the Canadian Indians, to give information to the colonial secretary, 
that order might be taken for their redemption. Many of the 
original returns to this invitation are on file. Touching memorials ! 
Here an aged parent in Andover, transmits the name of his ' dear 
son,' that he may have the benefit of ' the gracious design ' of the 
government. A poor widow at Newbury, states that her child, 
who was made captive at what she calls ' Rogers' great fight,' was 
but seventeen years old, when he left her. And old Jonathan 
Preble of Maine, whose son and daughter-in-law were killed by 
the Indians at Arrowsick Island, and six of their children, from the 
age of twelve years down to three months, carried into captivity, 
the same day, ' makes bold,' as he says, to send up the sad cata- 
logue of their names. He apologizes for this freedom, on the 
ground of ' having drank so deep ' of this misery ; and then appa- 
rently reflecting, that this was too tender an expression for an offi- 
cial paper, he strikes out the words, and simply adds, ' having been 
deprived of so many of my family.' The original paper, with the 
erasure and the correction, is preserved. 

In fact, the land was filled, town and country, — and in propor- 
tion to its population, no town more than Lexington, — with men 
who had seen service, — and such service too ! There were few 
villages in this part of the province which had not furnished re- 
cruits for that famous corps of rangers which was commanded by 
Rogers, and in which Stark served his military apprenticeship ; — a 
corps, whose duties went as far beyond the rigors of ordinary war- 
fare, as that is more severe than a holiday parade. Their march 
was through the untrodden by-paths of the Canadian frontier ; — 
the half-tamed savage, borrowing from civilization nothing but its 
maddening vices and destructive weapons, was the ranger's sworn 
enemy. Huntsman at once and soldier, his supply of provisions, 
on many of his excursions, was the fortune of the chase, and a 
draught from the mountain stream, that froze as it trickled from 
the rocks. Instead of going into quarters, when the forest put on 



502 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

its sere autumnal uniform of scarlet and gold, — winter, — Canadian 
winter, — dreary mid winter, — on frozen lakes, through ice-bound 
forests, from which the famished deer, chased by the gaunt wolf, 
was (kin to fly to the settlements, called the poor ranger to the field 
of his duties. Sometimes he descended the lake on skates ; some- 
tune- he marched on snow-shoes, where neither baf<rao-e-wa< r on 
nor beast of burden could follow him, and with all bis frugal store 
laden on his back. Not only was the foe he sought, armed with 
the tomahawk and scalping-knife, but the tortures of the fagol 
and the -take were in reserve for the prisoner, who, for wounds, or 
distance, or any other cause, could not readily be sold into an ig- 
nominious slaver) among tbe Canadian French. Should I relate 
all the hardships of this service, I should expect almost to start tbe 
lid of thai coffin : — for it covers tbe remains of at least one brave 
heart, who could bear witness to their truth. Captain Spikeman, 
who fell on tbe 21st of January, 1757, raised his company, in 
which Stark. I believe, was a lieutenant, principally in this neigh- 
borhood. The journal of General Win-low contains the muster 
roll, and I find there the names of several inhabitants of Lexington. 
Edmund Munroe, (afterwards, with another of tbe same name, 
killed by one cannon ball at tbe battle of Monmouth), was of the 
staff in Rogers' regiment; and Robert Munroe, whose remains are 
gathered in thai receptacle, was an ensign at the capture of Louis- 
burg, in L758. There coidd not have been less than twenty or 

thirt} of the citizen- of Lexington, who had learned the ail of war 
in some department or other of the military colonial service. Tin v 
had tasted it- honor- in the midnight surprise of the savage foe, 
and they had followed the banners of victory under tbe old provin- 
cial leaders. (Jridley. and Thomas, and Ruggles, and I'Yve. up to 

the ramparts of Quebec. No wonder that they started again at 
the sound of the trumpel ; no wonder thai men. who had followed 
tbe mere summons of allegiance and loyalt) to the -bores of lake 
Champlain, and the bank- of the St Lawrence, should obey the 
cry ol instinct, which called them to defend their homes. Tbe 
blood which was not too precious to be shed upon the plains of 

Abraham, in order to w re-t a disl ant colons from the dominion of 

France, might well be expected to flow like water, in defence of 

all that i- dear to man. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 503 

From the commencement of 1775, a resort to extremities was 
manifestly inevitable ; — but the time and mode, in which it should 
take place, were wrapped in solemn uncertainty. The patriots of 
the highest tone, well knowing that it could not he avoided, did not 
wish it postponed. Warren burned for the decisive moment ; — 
young, beloved, gifted for a splendid career, — he was ready, — im- 
patient for the conflict. The two Adamses and Hancock, bore, 
with scarcely suppressed discontent, the less resolute advances of 
some of their associates ; — and Quincy wrote from London, in 
December, 1774, in the following strain of devoted patriotism ; 
' Let me tell you one very serious truth, in which we are all agreed, 
— your countrymen must seal their cause with their blood. They 
must now stand the issue ; — they must preserve a consistency of 
character ; they must not delay ; they must [resist to the death], 
or be trodden into the vilest vassalage, — the scorn, the spurn of 
their enemies, a by-word of infamy among all men !' 

In anticipation of this impending crisis, the measures of military 
preparation, to which I have alluded, were taken. The royal gov- 
ernor of Massachusetts had served in the old French war, and did 
not undervalue his adversary, but adopted his measures of prepa- 
ration as against a resolute foe. Officers in disguise were sent to 
Concord and Worcester, to explore the roads and passes, and gain 
information relative to the provincial stores. At Medford, the mag- 
azine was plundered. An unsuccessful attempt was made to seize 
the artillery at Salem. On the 30th of March, General Gage 
sent eleven hundred men out of Boston, and threw down the stone 
walls which covered some of the passes in the neighborhood. 
These indications sufficiently showed that an attempt to destroy 
the provincial stores at Concord and Worcester, might be expect- 
ed ; a hostile excursion from Boston, on that errand, was daily an- 
ticipated, for some time before it took place ; — and proper measures 
were taken, by stationing two persons on the look out, in all the 
neighboring towns, to obtain and propagate the earliest intelligence 
of the movement. 

In anxious expectation of the crisis, a considerable part of the 
people of Boston sought refuge in the country. Inclination prompt- 
ed them to withdraw themselves from beneath the domination of 
what was now regarded as a hostile military power ; and patriotism 



504 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

iimI the expediency of diminishing, as far as possible, the 
number of those who, while they remained in Boston, were at the 
mercy of the royal governor; and held a-; hostages for the submis- 
sion of their countrymen. 

In conjunction with the seizure of the province stores, the arrest 
of sonic of the mod prom in i nl of the patriotic leaden was threat- 
ened. Hancock ami V.dams had hem often designated by name, as 
peculiarly obnoxious, and on the adjournment of the provincial 
Congress, a strong opinion had been expressed by their friends thai 
they ought not to return to the city. Hancock yielded to the ad- 
vice, and took up his abode in this place, — the spot where his 
father was horn. — where he had himself passed a portion of his 
childhood, and where he found in his venerable connexion. Mr 
(lark, an associate of congenial temper. Beneath the same 
hospitable roof. Samuel Adams also found a cordial welcome. 
Thus, my friends, your village became the place of refuge, and 
your father- were constituted the guardians of these distinguished 
patriots, at a moment when a price was believed to be set on their 
head-. 

Samuel ^.dams and John Hancock! — Do you ask why we should 

pause at their names ; Lei the proclamation of ( ri neial Gage fur- 
nish the answer: ' I do hereby, in hi- Majesty's name promise his 
nio-i gracious pardon to all persons who -hall forthwith lay down 
their arm-, and return to the duties of peaceable subjects, except- 
ing only from the benefit ofsuch pardon. Samuel Adam- and John 
Hancock, whose otii ncc- arc of too flagitious a nature to admit of 
any other consideration than that of condign punishment.' 

The flagitious offences of Hancock and Adams were their early 

unrelaxing, and fearless efforts, in defence of the rights of Ameri- 
can freemen ; and the cordial cooperati >f these men. in that 

-i.ai cause, unlike as they were iii ever) thing else, is one of the 
mosl pleasing incidents of the historj of the Revolution. John 

Hancock would have been the Spoiled child of fortune, if he had 

not been the chosen instrument of Providence. His grandfather 
wa- for fifty-four years the pa-tor. with great authority, of this 
church, and hi- father, afterward- minister of Braintree, wa- born 
in Lexington. John Hancock was left an orphan at the a 

-- \eii years, ami from that period, passed much of hi- time in this 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 505 

village, and received a part of his education at the town school. 
After leaving college, he entered the family, and became associated 
in the business of his uncle, a distinguished citizen and a wealthy 
merchant in Boston, who shortly afterwards died, bequeathing to 
John Hancock a fortune of seventy thousand pounds sterling ; — 
the largest estate, probably, which had ever been amassed in the 
colonies. He was thus left, at twenty-seven years of age, without 
parents, brought up in luxury, distinguished for personal appear- 
ance, voice, manners, and address, the master of a princely estate. 
He seemed, as it were, marked out by destiny, to pursue the tempt- 
ing path of royal favor. He was accused of ambition. But what 
had he to gain by joining the austere ranks of those who were just 
commencing the great battle of liberty ? He was charged with a 
love of display. But no change of public affairs could improve his 
private fortunes ; and he had but to seek them through the paths 
of loyalty, and all the honors of the empire, pertaining in any 
measure to his position, are at his command, on either side of the 
Atlantic. The tempter did whisper to him, that he might lead 
a gay and luxurious existence, within the precincts of the court. 
But his heart was beneath yonder roof where his father was born. 
In the midst of all the enjoyments and temptations of London, he 
remembered the school where he had first learned to read his Bi- 
ble ; and exclaimed, amidst the seductions of the British metropo- 
lis, ' If I forget thee, O New-England, may my right hand forget 
her cunning.' 

He witnessed the coronation of George III, and it was the im- 
mediate spectacle of a life of court attendance, that taught John 
Hancock to prize the independence of a Boston merchant, — of an 
American citizen. He returned from England, to plunge, heart 
and soul, into the contest for principle and for liberty. He scat- 
tered his princely wealth like ashes. He threw his property into 
the form in which it would be least productive to himself, and most 
beneficial to the industrious and suffering portion of the community. 
He built ships at a time, not when foreign trade was extending it- 
self, but when new restrictions were daily laid upon the commerce 
of America, and the shipwrights were starving ; and he built 
houses when real estate was rapidly sinking in value. He shunned 
personal danger as little as he spared his purse. On the retire- 
63 



.">()<; |.\ KKKTT'S ORATIONS. 

menl of Peyton Randolph from the chair of Congress in May, 
1775, he was called l>\ the members of thai venerable body to 
preside in their councils ; and in thai capacity, he bad the singular 
good fortune to sign the commission of George Washington, and 
ilic immortal honor to affix his name firsl to the Declaration of In- 
dependence. To the solid qualities of character, he added all the 
graces of the old school ; and as if to meet the taunts which were 
daily pointed at the rustic simplicity of the American cause, the 
enemies of the country beheld in its patriotic president an elegance; 
of appearance and manners unsurpassed at their own court. N\ heii 
the rapid depreciation of continental paper had greatly increased 

the distresses of the people. Hancock instructed his agents at home 
to receive that poor discredited currency with which his country 
was laboring to carry on the war. in payment of every thing due 
to him : and when asked his opinion in Congress, of the policy of 
an assaull upon Boston, he recommended the measure, although it 
would la\ half his property in ashes. During all the distresses, 
which precede d the commencement of hostilities, while Boston 
was sinking under the privations of the Port Bill, Hancock not 
only forbore the enforcement of his debts, bu! literally shared his 
diminished income with his suffering townsmen. Providence re- 
warded his warm-hearted and uncalculating patriotism with the 
highest honor- of the country ; — enabled him to build up his im- 
paired estate oul of the ashes of the Revolution ; and gave him a 
place as bright and glorious, in the admiration of mankind, c as if." 
to use the words of Daniel Webster, ' his name had been written 
in letter- of light on the blue arch of heaven, between Orion and 
the Pleiades.' 

Samuel Vdams was the counterpart of his distinguished associate 
in proscription. Hancock served the cause with his liberal opu- 
lence. \dam- with his incorruptible poverty. His family, at times. 
suffered almost for the comforts of life, when he might have sold 
his influence over the councils of America for uncounted gold, — 
when he raighi have emptied the British treasury, if he would 
have betrayed his country. Samuel Adams was the last of the 

Puritan- : — a class of men to whom the cau-e of civil and religious 

liberty on both sides of the Atlantic, is mainly indebted, for the 
greal progress which it has made for the last two hundred years; 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 507 

and when the Declaration of Independence was signed, that dispen- 
sation might be considered as brought to a close. At a time when 
the new order of things was inducing laxity of manners, and a de- 
parture from the ancient strictness, Samuel Adams clung with 
greater tenacity, to the wholesome discipline of the fathers. His 
only relaxation from the business and cares of life, was in the in- 
dulgence of a taste for sacred music, for which he was qualified by 
the possession of a melodious voice, and of a soul solemnly im- 
pressed with religious sentiment. Resistance of oppression was 
his vocation. On taking his second degree, he maintained the no- 
ble thesis, that it is ' lawful to resist the supreme magistrate, if the 
commonwealth cannot otherwise be preserved.' Thus, at the age 
of twenty-one, twenty years before the stamp act was thought of, 
Samuel Adams, from the cloisters of Harvard college, announced 
in two lines, the philosophy of the American Revolution. His 
after life showed that his practice was not below his theory. On 
leaving college, he devoted himself for some years to the profession 
of divinity ; but he gave himself afterwards wholly to the political 
service of the country. He was among the earliest and ablest 
writers on the patriotic side. He caught the plain, downright style 
of the commonwealth in Great Britain. More than most of his 
associates, he understood the efficacy of personal intercourse with 
the people. It was Samuel Adams, more than any other individ- 
ual, who brought the question home to their bosoms and firesides, 
— not by profound disquisitions and elaborate reports, — though 
these in their place were not spared, — but in the caucus, the club- 
room, at the green-dragon, in the ship-yards, in actual conference, 
man to man, and heart to heart. He was forty-six years of age, 
when he first came to the House of Representatives. There he 
was, of course, a leader ; a member of every important committee ; 
the author of many of the ablest and boldest state papers of the 
time. But the throne of his ascendency was in Faneuil Hall. As 
each new measure of arbitrary power was announced from across 
the Atlantic, or each new act of menace and violence, on the part 
of the officers of the government or of the army, occurred in Bos- 
ton, — its citizens, oftentimes in astonishment and perplexity, rallied 
to the sound of his voice, in Faneuil Hall ; and there, as from the 
crowded gallery or the moderator's chair, he animated, enlightened, 



508 I \ IKKTT'S ORATIONS. 

fortified, and roused the admiring throng, he seemed to gather them 
together beneath the regis of bis indomitable spirit, as a hen gath- 
ereth her chickens under ber wings. With his namesake, John 
A/Jams, Warren, and Hancock, he perceived the inevitable neces- 
sity of st rik'n iu for independence, a considerable time before it was 
generally admitted. In some branches of knowledge he was ex- 
celled bj other men ; bul one thing he knew thoroughly, and that 
was liberty. He began with it early, studied it long, and possessed 
the whole science of it. He knew it. class and order. — <_ r eniH and 
species,- — root and branch. With him it was do matter of frothy 
sentiment. He knew it was no gaudy May-da) flower, peeping 
through the soft verdanl sods of spring, and opening its painted pe- 
tals as a dew cup for midnighl fairies to sip at. He knew it was 
an austere and tardy growth, — the food of men, long hungering for 
their inalienable rights, — a seed scattered broad cast on a rough, 
though genial soil, — ripening beneath lowering skies and autumnal 
frosts, — to be reaped with a bloody sickle. Instead of quailing, his 
spirit mounted and mantled with the approach of the crisis. Chafed 
and fretted with the minor irritations of the early stages of the con- 
tent, he rose in a religious tranquillity, as the divisive hour drew 
nigh. In all the excitement and turmoil of the anxious days that 
preceded the explosion, he was of the few, who never lost their 
ha la nee. He was thoughtful. — serious almost to the point of stern- 
ness, — resolute as fate; bul cheerful bimself, and a living spring of 
animation to others. He stood among the people a pillar of sal'et\ 
and strength : — 

\- some i. ill cliff, thai lifts its awful form, 
Swells from the vale, and midwaj leaves the Btorm; 
Though round its breast the rolling clouds arc Bpread, 

Eternal sunshine settles on its bead. 

\ in I so he looked forward to the impending struggle, as the 
consummation of a greal design, of which not man bul God had 
laid the foundation stone on the rock of Plymouth ; and when on 
the morning of the da\ you now commemorate, the vollies ol fire- 
arms from this spot, announced to him and his companion, in the 
neighboring field, thai the greal battle of liberty had begun, be 
threw up his arms, and exclaimed, in a burst of patriotic rapture. 
• ( ). w hat a glorious morning i this !' 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 509 

Yes, fellow citizens, such was the exclamation of Samuel Adams, 
when a thousand British troops were in possession of your village, 
and seven of your citizens were struggling in the agonies of death. 
His prophetic soul told him, that the divine form of his country's 
liberty would follow on, the next personage in that fearful but all- 
glorious pageant. He saw that the morning sun, whose first slant- 
ing beams were dancing on the tops of the hostile bayonets, would 
not more surely ascend the heavens, than the sun of independence 
would arise on the clouded fortunes of his country. The glory he 
foresaw has come to pass. Two generations attest the truth of his 
high-souled prophecy. And you, ' village Hampdens, who, with 
dauntless breast' withstood, not 'the petty tyrant of your fields,' 
but the dread and incensed sovereign of a mighty empire, when he 
came in his embattled hosts to subdue you ; you, who sealed your 
devotion to the cause by the last great attestation of sincerity, your 
blood has not sunk un profitably into the ground ! If your spirits 
are conscious of the honors we now pay your relics, you behold in 
the wide-spread prosperity of the growing millions of America, the 
high justification of that generous impulse, which led you, on that 
glorious morning, to the field of death ! 

On Saturday, the 1 5th of April, the provincial Congress, then 
in session at Concord, adjourned to meet again on the 10th of 
May. It is probable that the intelligence of this event had not 
reached General Gage in Boston, when on the same day, he com- 
menced his arrangements for the projected expedition. The gren- 
adiers and light infantry were relieved from their several stations in 
Boston, and concentrated on the common, under pretence of learn- 
ing a new military exercise. At midnight following, the boats of 
the transport ships, which had been previously repaired, were 
launched, and moored under the sterns of the men-of-war in the 
harbor. Dr Warren, on his way home from the Congress on Sat- 
urday, had expressed to the family of Mr Clark his firm persuasion, 
that the moment was at hand when blood would flow. He justly 
regarded the military movements of the following night, as a con- 
firmation of this opinion, and despatched Colonel Paul Revere the 
next day to this place, to bring the intelligence to Messrs Hancock 
and Adams. They naturally inferred from the magnitude of the 
preparations, that their own seizure could not be the sole object, 



510 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

and advised the committee of safety, then s i 1 1 i 1 1 <_r at West Cam- 
bridge, to order the distribution, into the neighboring towns, of the 
stores collected at Concord. Colonel Paul Revere, on bis return 
to tow n nil Sunday, concerted with bis friends in Charlestown, that 
two lights should be shown from the steeple of the .North Church, 
if the British troops should cross in boats t<> Cambridge, and one, 
if they should march out, iivi r Boston neck. 

Wednesday, the 1 9th, was fixed upon as the eventful day. Ten 
or twelve British officers were sent out the day before, on horse- 
back, who dined at Cambridge; and at nightfall scattered them- 
selves on the roads to Concord, to prevent the communication of 
intelligence from the town. Early information of this fad was 
brought to this place by Solomon Brown,* of Lexington, who re- 
turned late from Boston market on the afternoon of the 18th, and 
passed them and was passed bj them several times, as they some- 
times rode forward or fell back on the road. A despatch to the 
same edict was also sent by Mr Gerry, of the committee of safe- 
ty, at Wesl Cambridge, to Mr Hancock, whose answer, still pre- 
served, evinces the calmness and self-possession which he main- 
tained at the approaching crisis. In consequence of thi< information, 
a guard of eight men, under the late Colonel William Munroe, then 
a sergeant in the Lexington company, was marched, in the course 
of the evening, to Mr Clark's house, for the protection of Messrs 
Adams and Hancock. At the same time. Messrs Sanderson, Lor- 
ing,f and I {row n. were sent up tow ards ( 'oncord. to w atch the move- 
ment of the officers. They came upon them unawares in Lincoln, 
and fell into their hands. About midnight, Colonel Paul Revere, who 

had left Boston, l>\ direction of Dr Warren, as SOOH as the move- 
ment of the troops was discovered, and had passed l>\ the wa\ ol 

Charlestown, (where he narrowlj escaped two British officers,) 
through Medford and West Cambridge, giving the alarm at ever) 
house on the way. — arrived at Mr Clark's with despatches from 

Dr Warren for llancoek ami \dain-. Passing on towank Con- 
cord. Revere also fell into the hands of the British officers in Lin- 

Mh Brown ia still living, but from the distance of his place of residence, was 
oof able i" attend with the othei Burvivors of Captain Parker's company, (eleven 
in ntiiiili'T ), 1 1 1. ■ celebration of the anniversary. 
t Mr Loring mi pn -■ at "ii Hi. stage, it tlw »l<>li\ <r \ of this add 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 511 

coin, but not till he had had an opportunity of communicating his 
errand to young Dr Prescott of Concord, whom he overtook on 
the road. At the moment Revere was arrested by the officers, 
Prescott succeeded in forcing his way through them, and thus car- 
ried the alarm to Concord. The intelligence sent by Dr Warren 
to Messrs Hancock and Adams, purported that ' a large body of 
the king's troops, (supposed to be a brigade of 1200 or 1500 men), 
had embarked in boats from Boston.' 

After the detention of an hour or two in Lincoln, the British 
officers were informed by Colonel Revere, of all the measures he 
had taken to alarm the country ; and deemed it expedient for their 
own safety to hasten back toward Boston. On their way toward 
Lexington, they put many questions to their prisoners, as to the 
place where Messrs Adams and Hancock were residing. As they 
approached Lexington, the alarm bell was ringing, and a volley 
was fired by some of the militia, then assembling on the green. 
LTpon this, they hastened their flight, and just as they entered the 
village, their prisoners escaped from them. Colonel Revere re- 
paired to the house of Mr Clark, and the general apprehensions 
relative to his distinguished guests having been confirmed by the 
interrogatories of the British officers, Messrs Hancock and Adams 
were persuaded with great difficulty to withdraw from the imme- 
diate vicinity of the road. On the return of Colonel Revere to 
the centre of the village, he met Captain Thaddeus Bowman com- 
ing up the road, in full gallop, with the news that the British troops 
were at hand. 

It was at this time between four and five o'clock in the morning. 
Three messengers had been sent down the road, to ascertain the 
approach of the British army. The two first brought no tidings, 
and the troops were not discovered by the third, Captain Bowman, 
till they were far advanced into the town. They had been put in 
motion about seven hours before on Boston common. They cross- 
ed in boats, near the spot where the court house now stands in East 
Cambridge ; and there took up their march, from eight hundred to 
one thousand strong, grenadiers, light infantry, and marines. They 
crossed the marshes, inclining to their right, and came into the 
Chailestown and West Cambridge road, near the foot of Prospect 
hill. It was a fine, moonlight, chilly night. No hostile move- 



512 BFBBBTT»S uRATIONS. 

nieni was made by them, till they reached West Cambridge. The 
committee of safety had been in session in thai place, at Wetber- 
tavejrn ; and three of its distinguished members, vice-presi- 
dent Gerry, Colonel Lee, and Colonel Orne, had taken up their 
lodgings for the nighl at the same bouse. The village having been 
alarmed bj Colonel Revere, was on die alert at the approach of 
the armj ; and Messrs Gerry, Lee, and Orne had risen from their 
heds and gone to their windows to contemplate the strange spec- 
tacle* As the troops came up on a line with the house, a ser- 
gi ant's guard was detached to search it ; and die members of the 
committee had hut a moment to escape by flight into the adjacent 
Gelds. 

Ii was now perceived by Colonel Smith, who commanded the 
British detachment, thai the country, on all sides, was in a state of 
alarm. The new- had spread in every direction, both by the way 
of Charlestown and Roxbury. The light- in the North Church 
steeple had given the signal before the troops had fairly embarked. 
It was propagated by the alarm bell, from village to village ; vol- 
leys from the minute men were heard in every direction ; — and as 
is light and sound could travel, the oews ran through Massa- 
chusetts, I might say through New-England; and everj man as he 
heard ii sprang to his arms. As a measure of precaution, under 
these circumstances, Colonel Smith detached sis companies of light 
infantr) and marines, to move forward under Major Pitcairne and 

take possession of the bridges at Concord, in order to cut off the 
communication with the interior of the country. At the same 
time, also, he -int hack to General Gage and asked a reinforce- 
ment, a piece of forethoughl which saved all thai was saved of the 
fortune- of that day. Before thesi detached companies could 
reach Lexington, the officers alreadj mentioned were hastening 
dow n the road : and falling in with Major Pitcairne, informed him 
thai five hundred men were assembling on Lexington green to re- 
sis) the troop-. In consequi ace of this exaggerated account, the 
advance partj was halted, m give time for the grenadiers to come 
up. 

And tlni-. fellow citizens, having glanced at all the other move- 
ments of this memorable night, we are prepared to contemplate 
thai which gives inti resl to th< m all. The compan) assembled on 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 513 

this spot, and which had been swelled by the British officers to five 
hundred, consisted in reality of sixty or seventy of the militia of 
Lexington. On the receipt of the information of the excursion of 
the officers and the movement of the troops, a guard had been set, 
as we have seen, at the house of Mr Clark, the evening before. 
After the receipt of the intelligence brought by Revere, the alarm 
bell was rung ; and a summons sent round to the militia of the 
place, to assemble on the green. This was done by direction of 
the commander of the company, Captain John Parker, — an offi- 
cer of approved firmness and courage. He had probably served 
in the French war, and gave many proofs, on this trying occasion, 
of a most intrepid spirit. About two o'clock in the morning, the 
drum beat to arms, the roll was called, and about one hundred and 
thirty answered to their names ; — some of them, alas, — whose 
ashes, now gathered in that depository, invoke the mournful honors 
of this day, — for the last time on earth. Messengers were sent 
down the road, to bring intelligence of the troops ; and the men 
were ordered to load with powder and ball. One of the messen- 
gers soon returned with the report, that there were no troops to be 
seen. In consequence of this information, as the night was chilly, 
in order to spare the men, already harassed by the repeated alarms 
which had been given, and to relieve the anxiety of their families, 
the militia were dismissed ; but ordered to await the return of the 
other expresses sent clown to gain a knowledge of the movements 
of the enemy, and directed to be in readiness, at the beat of the 
drum. About half the men sought refuge from the chill of the 
night, in the public house still standing on the edge of the green ; 
the residue retired to their homes in the neighborhood. One of 
the messengers was made piisonerby the British, who took effect- 
ual precautions to arrest every person on the road. Benjamin 
Wellington, hastening to the centre of the village, was intercepted 
by their advanced party, and was the first person seized by the 
enemy in arms, in the revolutionary war. In consequence of these 
precautions, the troops remained undiscovered till within a mile and 
a half of this place, and when there was scarce time for the last 
messenger, Captain Thaddeus Bowman, to return with the tidings 
of their certain approach. 

A new, the last alarm, is now gfiven : — the bell rings, — guns are 
64 



.~)| 1 I \ BRETT'S oKATIONS. 

fired in haste on the green, — the drum beats to amis. The militia. 
within reach of the sound, hasten to obe) the call, sixty or seven- 
ty in number, and are drawn up in order, a verj 3hort distance in 
rear of the spol on which we stand. The British troops, hearing 
the American drum, regard it as a challenge, and arc baited at the 
distance of one hundred and sixtj rods, to load their guns. At 
the sight of this preparation, a few of the militia, on the two ex- 
tremities of the line, naturallj feeling the madness of resisting a 
force outnumbering their own, ten to one. and supposed to be near 
twice as large as it was, showed a disposition to retreat. Captain 
Parker ordered them to stand their ground, threatened death toanj 
man who should fly, — but directed them not to fire unless first tired 
upon. The commanders of the British forces advance some rods in 
front of their troops. With mingled threats and oath-, they bid 
the Americans lay down their arms and disperse, and call to their 
own troops, now rushing furiously on, — the light infantrj on the 
right of the church in which we are now assembled, and the gren* 
adiers on the left, — to fire. The order not being followed with in- 
stant obedience, is renewed with oaths and imprecations, — the of- 
ficers discharge their pistols, — and the foremost platoon fires over 

the head- of the Americans. No one falls, and John Munroe. 

standing next to a kinsman of thi same familj name, calmly ob- 
served that they were fuin'_ r nothing but powder. Another general 
volley, aimed with fatal precision, succeeds. Ebenezer Munroe 
replied to the remark jusl made, that something more than powder 
was then fired, as be was shot himself, in the arm. At the same 

moment, several dropped around them, killed and wounded. Cap- 
tain Parker now felt the necessity of directing his men to disperse; 
but it was not till several of them had returned the British lire, and 
some of them more than once, that this handful of brave men were 
driven from the field. 

( )f this gallant little company. sev< n were killed and ten wound- 
ed, a quarter part at leasl of the number drawn up, and a most 
signal proof of the firmness with which thej stood the British fire. 
Willingl) would I do justice to the separate merit of each individual 
of this heroic hand : but tradition has not furnished u> the mean-. 
\ f -a int< n sting anecdotes have, however, been preserved. Jedi - 
diah Munroe was one of the wounded. N<»t disheartened bj this 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 515 

circumstance, instead of quitting the field, he marched with his 
company, in pursuit of the enemy, to Concord, and was killed in 
the afternoon. Ebenezer Munroe, Jr. received two wounds, and a 
third ball through his garments. William Tidd, the second in 
command of the company, was pursued by Major Pitcairne, on 
horseback up the north road, with repeated cries to stop, or he was 
a dead man. Having leaped the fence, he discharged his gun at 
his pursuer, and thus compelled him in turn to take flight. Rob- 
ert Munroe was killed with Parker, Muzzy, and Jonathan Harring- 
ton, on or near the line where the company was formed. Robert 
Munroe had served in the French wars. He was the standard- 
bearer of his company at the capture of Louisburg, in 1758. He 
now lived to see set up for the first time, the banner of his country's 
independence. He saw it raised amidst the handful of his brave 
associates; alas, that he was struck down, without living, like you, 
venerable survivors of that momentous day, to behold it, as it dal- 
lies with the wind, and scorns the sun, blest of heaven and of men, 
— at the head of the triumphant hosts of America! All hail to 
the glorious ensign ! Courage to the heart and strength to the 
hand, to which, in all time, it shall be entrusted ! May it for ever 
wave in honor, in unsullied glory, and patriotic hope, on the dome 
of the capitol, on the country's strong holds, on the tented plain, 
on the wave-rocked top-mast. Wheresoever on the earth's sur- 
face, the eye of the American shall behold it, may he have reason 
to bless it. On whatsoever spot it is planted, there may freedom 
have a foot-hold, humanity a brave champion, and religion an altar. 
Though stained with blood in a righteous cause, may it never, in 
any cause, be stained with shame. Alike, when its gorgeous folds 
shall wanton in lazy holiday triumph, on the summer breeze, and 
its tattered fragments be dimly seen through the clouds of war, may 
it be the joy and pride of the American heart. First raised in the 
cause of right and liberty, in that cause alone, may it forever spread 
out its streaming blazonry to the battle and the storm. First raised 
in this humble village, and since borne victoriously across the con- 
tinent and on every sea, may virtue, and freedom, and peace for 
ever follow, where it leads the way ! The banner which was 
raised on this spot, by a village hero * was not that whose glorious 

* Joseph Simonds was the ensign of the Lexington company on the 19th of April, 
1775. 



516 I \ BRETT'S OB LTIONS. 

folds are no\* gathered round the sacred depository of the ashes of 
his brave companions. He carried the old provincial flag of Mas- 
sachusetts Bay. \ it bad once been planted in triumph, on the 
walls of Louisburg, Quebec, and Montreal, it was mm raised in a 
New-England village, among a band of brave men, some of w hom 
had followed it to victory iu distant fields, and now rallied beneath 
it. in the bosom of their homes, det< trained, it" duty called them, to 
shed their blood in in defence. Maj Heaven approve the omen. 
The ancient standard of Massachusetts Bay was displayed for the 
confederating colonies, before the St m-Sp angled l» wm.k of th i. 
I n i < i n had been flung to the hreeze. Should the time come, 
(w hich God avert), w hen thai glorious banner shall he rent in twain, 
may Massachusetts, who first raised her standard in the cause of 
United America, be the last by whom that cause is deserted; 
and as many of her children, who first raised thai standard on this 
spot, fell gloriously in its defence, so may the last son of Massachu- 
setts, to whom it shall be entrusted, not yield it hut in the mortal 
agony ! 

Harrington's was a cruel fate. He fell in front of his o\\ n house, 
on the north of the common. Ill- wile, at the window, saw him 
tall, and then Mart up, the blood gushing from his breast. He 
stretched out his hands towards her, a- if for assistance, and fell 
again. Rising once more on his hands and knees, he crawled 
the road towards hi- dwelling. She ran to meet him at the 
door, hut it was to see him expire at her feet. Hadleyand Brown 
were pursued, and fell, alter they had left the common. Porter, 
of Woburn, was unarmed, lie had been taken prisoner on the 
road, before the British army reached Lexington. Attemptii 
make In- escape, when the firing c< uenced, In was shot within 

a few rods of the conn i. Four of the company went into the 

meeting-house which stood on this spot, for a supply of ammuni- 
tion. The) had brought a cask of powder from an upper loft into 
allery, and removed in head. At this moment, the house 
was surrounded by the British force, and the discharge of musketry 

and the eric- of the wounded announced that the work of death 

was In gun. < m< of the four 31 creted himself in the oppositi 
lery. toother, Simonds, cocked his gun, and la\ down by the 
open cask ol powdi r, determined never to he taken alive. Comee 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 517 

and Harrington resolved to force their way from the house, and in 
this desperate attempt, Cotnee was wounded and Harrington killed. 
History, — Roman history, — does not. furnish an example of brave- 
ry that outshines that of Jonas Parker. A truer heart did not 
bleed at Thermopylae. He was the next door neighbor of Mr 
Clark, and had evidently imbibed a double portion of his lofty 
spirit. Parker was often heard to say, that be the consequences 
what they might, and let others do what they pleased, he would 
never run from the enemy. He was as good as his word, — better. 
Having loaded his musket, he placed his hat, containing his ammu- 
nition, on the ground between his feet, in readiness for a second 
charge. At the second fire he was wounded, and sunk upon his 
knees; and in this condition discharged his gun. While loading it 
again, upon his knees, and striving in the agonies of death to re- 
deem his pledge, he was transfixed by a bayonet ; and thus died 
on the spot where he first stood and fell. 

These were a portion of the terrors of this blood-stained field ; 
but how shall I describe the agonizing scene which presented it- 
self, that fearful night and the following day, to every family in 
Lexington ? — The husband, the father, the brother, the son, gone 
forth on the errand of peril and death. The aged, the infirm, the 
unprotected, left, without a guardian, at the desolate fireside, at 
this dismal moment, awaiting the instant intelligence of some fatal 
disaster ; — fainting under the exaggerated terrors of a state of things 
so new and trying ; — or fleeing, half clad and bewildered, to the 
covert of the neighboring woods, there to pass the ensuing day, — 
famished, — exhausted, — distracted, — the prey of apprehensions 
worse than death. The work of destruction had begun. Who 
could assure them that their beloved ones were not among the first 
victims ? The British force had moved on towards Concord, and 
the citizens of Lexington had joined in the pursuit. What new 
dangers awaited them on the march ? The enemy was to return 
through their village, — exasperated with opposition, — what new 
horrors might not be expected from his vengeance ? 

While a considerable portion of the unarmed population of Lex- 
ington, dispersed through the nearest villages, or wandering in the 
open air, behind the neighboring hills, and in the adjacent woods, 
were at the mercy of these apprehensions, the British column 



.")| - i \ EHETT'S ORATIONS. 

moved on toward Concord. The limits of the occasion put it out 
of my power to dwell, as I would gladly do, on the gallant resist- 
ance made at Concord. — the hemic conduct of Davis, Hosmer, 

and Buttrick, and their brave companions, — -the rapid and formida- 
ble gathering of the population, the precipitate and calamitous re- 
treat of the enemy. On the return of this anniversary ten years 
aL r o. 1 endeavored, at the request of our fellow citizens of Concord, 
a- far as I was able, to do justice to this interesting narrative, and 
to the distinguished and honorable part borne by the people of 
Concord, in the memorable transactions of the day. Time will 
onl\ permit me now to repeat in brief, that the country poured 
down its population in every direction. They gathered on the hills 
that overlooked the road, like dark lowering clouds. Every patch 
of trees, c\ery stream, covert, buildimr, -tone wall, was lined, to 
use the words of a British officer, with an unintermitted fire. A 
skirmish engaged the enemy at every defile and cross road. Through 
one of them Governor Brooks led up the men of Reading. At 
another. Captain Parker, with the Lexington militia, although sev- 
enteen of his number had been killed or wounded in the morning 
returned to the conflict. Before they reached Lexington, the 
rout of the invaders was complete; and it was only by placing 
themselves in the front, and threatening instant death to their own 
men, if the} continued their Sight, thai the British officers were 
able in some degree to cheek their disorder. Their entire destruc- 
tion was prevented, by the arrival of reinforcements miller Lord 
Percy, who reached Lexington in time to rescue the exhausted 
troops, on their Bighl from Concord. Lord Percy brought with 
him two pieces of artillery, which were stationed on points com- 
manding the road. A cannon shot from one of them passed through 
the meeting-house which stood on this spot. These pieces were 

diligently served, and kept the Americans at bay : but the moment 

the retreat was resumed, the whole country was again alive.* It 
w as a season of \ ictory for the cause, — auspicious of the fortune of 
the Revolution; — but purchased with accumulated sacrifices on 
the part of Lexington. To cover their retreat, the British arm) 
Bel fire to the bouses on the road ; some were burned to the ground ; 

e note B, at the end. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 519 

several injured ; and three more of the brave citizens of Lexington 
were killed. 

At length the eventful day is passed, — the doleful tocsin is hush- 
ed, — the dreadful voice of the cannon is still, — the storm has pass- 
ed by. It has spent its fury on your devoted village, — your houses 
have been wrapped in flames, — your old men, women, and chil- 
dren have fled in terror from their firesides, — your brave sons have 
laid down their lives at the threshold of their dwellings, and the 
shades of evening settle down upon your population, worn with 
fatigue, — heavy with bereavement and sorrow. What is the char- 
acter, and what are the consequences of the day ? — It was one of 
those occasions, in which the duration of ages is compressed into a 
span. What was done and suffered on that day, will never cease 
to be felt, in its ulterior consequences, till all that is America has 
perished. In the lives of individuals, there are moments which 
give a character to existence ; — moments too often through levity, 
indolence, or perversity, suffered to pass unimproved ; but some- 
times met with the fortitude, vigilance, and energy due to their 
momentous consequences. So, in the life of nations, there are all- 
important junctures, when the fate of centuries is crowded into a 
narrow space, — suspended on the results of an hour. With the 
mass of statesmen, their character is faintly perceived, — their con- 
sequences imperfectly apprehended, — the certain sacrifices exagge- 
rated, — the future blessings dimly seen ; — and some timid and dis- 
astrous compromise, — some faint-hearted temperament is patched up, 
in the complacency of short-sighted wisdom. Such a crisis was the 
period which preceded the 19th of April. Such a compromise the 
British ministry proposed, courted, and would have accepted most 
thankfully, — but not such was the patriotism nor the wisdom of 
those who guided the councils of America, and wrought out her 
independence. They knew, that in the order of that Providence, 
in which a thousand years are as one day, a day is sometimes as a 
thousand years. Such a day was at hand. They saw, — they 
comprehended, — they welcomed it ; — they knew it was an era. 
They met it with feelings like those of Luther, when he denounced 
the sale of indulgences, and pointed his thunders at once ; — poor 
Augustine monk, — against the civil and ecclesiastical power of the 
church, the Quirinal and the Vatican. They courted the storm of 



520 El BRETT'S ORATIONS, 

war. as Columbus courted the stormy billows of the glorious ocean, 
from whose giddy curling tops he seemed to look out, as from a 
watch-tower, to catch the firsl hazj wreath in the west, which was 
to announce thai anew world was found. The poor Augustine 
monk knew and was persuaded, that the hour had come, and he 
was elected to eontrol it. in which a might} revolution was to be 
wroughl in the Christian church. The poor Genoese pilot knew 
in his heart, thai he had. as it were, but to stretch out the wand of 
his courage and skill, and call up a new continent from the depths 
of the sea: — and Hancock and Adams, through the smoke and 
flames of the L9th of April, beheld thesun of their country's inde- 
pendence arise, with healing in his wings. 

And you. brave and patriotic men, whose ashes are gathered in 
this bumble place of deposit) no time shall rob you of the well-de- 
served meed of praise! You too perceived not less clearly than 
the more illustrious patriot- whose spiril you caught, that the deci- 
sive hour had come. You felt with them, that it could not, — must 
not be shunned. You had resolved it should not. Reasoning, 
remonstrance had been tried: from your own town-meetings, from 
the pulpit, from beneath the arches of Faneuil Hall, every note of 
argument, of appeal, of adjuration, had sounded to the foot of the 
throne, and in vain. The wheels of destinj rolled on : — the greal 
design of Providence must be fulfilled : — the issue must be ooblj 
or basel) shunned. Strange it seemed, inscrutable it was, 
thai your remote and quiet village should be the chosen altar of the 
first greal sacrifice. I >ut so it was; — the summons came and 
found you waiting ; and herein the centre of your dwelling places, 
within sight of the homes you wire to inter no more, between 
the village church where your fathers worshipped, and the grave- 
yard where they la\ at rest, bravely and meekly, like Christian 
heroes, you sealed the cause with your blood. Parker, Munroe, 
Hadley, the Harringtons, Muzzy, Brown: — alas, ye cannot hear 
my words ; — do voice, but that of the archangel, shall penetrate 
your urns; but to the end of time your remembrance shall be 
|in ti \ i (I ! To the end of time, the soil w hereon \ e ft II is holy ; 
and shall be trod with reverence, while America has a Dame among 

the nations ! 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 521 

And now ye are going to lie down beneath yon simple stone, 
which marks the place of your mortal agony. Fit spot for your 
last repose ! 

Where should the soldier rest, but where he fell ! 

For ages to come, the characters graven in the enduring marble 
shall tell the unadorned tale of your sacrifice ; and ages after that 
stone itself has crumbled into dust, as inexpressive as yours, his- 
tory, — undying history, — shall transmit the record ! Aye, while 
the language we speak retains its meaning in the ears of men ; — 
while a sod of what is now the soil of America shall be trod by 
the foot of a freeman, your names and your memory shall be 
cherished ! 

65 



NOTES. 



Nute A, to page 490. 

The following is the list of Captain Parker's company, as they 
stood enrolled on the 19th of April, 177;. 

Those marked with an asterisk, were present at the celebra- 
tion on the 20th of April, 1835. 



Blodget Isaac 

Bowman Francis 

Bridge John 

Bridge Joseph 

Brown Francis, sergeant, wounded 

Brown James 

Brown John, killed 

Brown Solomon, living 

Bnckman John 

( 'handler John 
Chandler Jolm, Jr 
Child Abijah 

< 'on Joseph, wounded 

Cmier Thomas 
•Dnrant Isaac, living 
Eastabrook Joseph 
i r Nathaniel, wounded 

Feasenden Nathan 
Pessenden Thomas 
'I 'i-k Dr Joseph, living 
Green I- lac 
Grimes William 

I ladle j Benjamin 
Hadlej Ebenezer 
Hadle] Samuel, killed 

II ej Thomas 

I larrington < bleb, Killed 
Harrington Daniel, clerk 
Harrington Bbenezei 
I larrington Jeremiah 
I larrington John 



Harrington Jonathan 

Harrington Jonathan, Jr, killed 

Harrington Jonathan, 3d, living 

Harrington Moses 

Harrington Thaddeus 

Harrington Thomas 

Harrington William 

I tastings Isaac 

' I lo-mer Jolui, living 

Lock Amos 

Lock Benjamin, In mi: 

' l.oi tog Jonathan, living 

Loring Joseph 
Marrett Amos 

\l "ill (atliel. living 

Mason Josi ph 

M, id Ahner 
Merriam Benjamin 
Merriam William 
Mollikeil Nathaniel 
Munroe Wi 

Mlinroe Flieuezer 

Vlunroe Ebenezer, Jr, wounded 

Munroe Edmund, lieutenant 
Mu ii roe ( I'eorgC 
Muuroi Isaac, Jr, killed 

Monroe Jedediah, wounded in morning 

killed iii the afternoon. 

Monroe John 

Munroe John, .Ii 
Monroe l'lnleiiion 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 



523 



Munroe Robert, killed 

Munroe William, orderly sergeant 

*Munroe William, Jr, living 

Muzzy Amos 

*Parker Ebenezer, living 

Parker John, captain, 

Parker Jonas, killed 

Parker Thaddeus 

Parkhurst John 

Pierce Solomon, wounded 

Porter Asahel, of Woburn, killed 

Prince, a negro, wounded 

Raymond John, killed 

Reed Hammond 

Reed Josiah, living 

Reed Joshua 

Reed Nathan 

Reed Robert 

Reed Thaddeus 

Reed William 

Robbins John, wounded 

Robbins Thomas 

Robinson Joseph 

Sanderson Elijah 

Sanderson Samuel 

*Simonds Ebenezer, living 

Simonds Joseph, ensign 



Simonds Josiah 
Simonds Joshua 
Smith Abraham 
Smith David 
Smith Ebenezer 
Smith Jonathan 
Smith Joseph 
Smith Phineas 
Smith Samuel 
Smith Thaddeus 
Smith William 
Stearns Asahel 
Stone Jonas 
Tidd John, wounded 
Tidd Samuel 
Tidd William 
Viles Joel 
White Ebenezer 
Williams John 
Wellington Benjamin 
Wellington Timothy 
Winship John 
Winship Simeon 
Winship Thomas 
Wyman James 
Wyman Nathaniel 



Note B, to page 518. 

The proper limits of the occasion precluded a detail of the in- 
teresting occurrences of the retreat and pursuit from Lexington 
to Charlestown. One portion of these were commemorated at 
Danvers, on the 20th of April, 1835. Next to Lexington, Dan- 
vers suffered more severely than any other town. Seven of the 
Danvers company were killed. On the late return of the anni- 
versary, the corner-stone of a monument to their memory was 
laid at Danvers, with affecting ceremonies, and a highly inter- 
esting address was delivered by Daniel P. King, Esq., of that 
place. 

The following return of all the killed and wounded, is taken 
from the Appendix to Mr Phinney's pamphlet : 

Lexington. Killed in the morning. — Jonas Parker, Robert Munroe, Samuel 
Hadley, Jonathan Harrington, Jr, Isaac Muzzy, Caleb Harrington, John Brown. — 7. 



524 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

Killed in the afternoon. — JedediahMunroe, John Raymond, Nathaniel Wyman. 
— :?. 

M It •' in tin' morning, — John Bobbins, Solomon Pierre, John Tidd, Joseph 
Comee, Ebeuezer Monroe, Jr. Thomas Winship, .Nathaniel Farmer, Prince Esta- 
brook, Jedediah Monroe. — 9. 

il bunded in the afternoon. — Francis Brown. — 1. 

Cambridge. EilletL—Wm. Marcy, Moses Richardson, John Hicks, Jason 
Russell, Jain/ Wyman, Jason Winship. — 6. 

il inlet. — Samnel Whittemore. — 1. 

Missing. — Samoel Frost, Beth BosselL — 2. 

Concord. Wounded. — Charles Miles, Nathan Barnet, Ahel Prescott. — B. 

\ i i i. ii \ m. — Lieot. John Boom, Eiisha Mills, Amos Mills, Nathaniel Chamber- 
lain, Jonathan Parker. — •">. 

Wounded. — Eleazer Kinsbury, Tolman. — 2. 

Sudbury. Killed. — Josiah Haynes, \~ahel Reed. — 2. 

Wo inded. — Joshoa Haynes, Jr. — 1. 

Acton. Killed. — (apt. Isaac Davis, Abner Hosmer, James Hayward. — 3. 

Bedford. Killed. — Jonathan Wilson. — I. Wounded. — Job Lane. — 1. 

Wobi rn. Killed. — Asahel Porter, Daniel Thompson. — 2. 

il nded. — George Reed, John Bacon, Johnson. — 3. 

Medford. Killed. — Henry Putnam, William Polly. — 2. 

Ch \m. i - 1 >>\\ n. Killed. — James Miller, C. Barber's son. — 2. 

\\ \ i i K i nw n. Killed. — Joseph Coolidge. — 1. 

Ii: \ \l l M.n \ m. Wounded. — Daniel I lemineiiway. — 1. 

I' dham. Killed. — I'.lias I laven. Wounded. — Israel Everett. 
S i "u .11 —Daniel Conant 

Boxbi km Missing. — Elijah Seaver. 
Brookline. Killed. — Isaac Gardner, Esq. — 1. 
P.n.i.i rk a. Wounded. — John Nickols, Timothy Blanchard. 
Chelmsford. M laron Chamberlain, Oliver Barron. — 2. 

Sali m. Killed. — Benjamin Pierce. 
N> ■■•• row. Wounded. — Noah Wiswell. 

Danvers. Killed. — Henry Jacobs, Samuel Cook, Ebenezer Goldthwait, 
George Soothwick, Benjamin Daland, Jotham Webb, Perley Putnam. — 7. 

II ruled. — Nathan I'utnam. Dennis Wallace. — 2. 

M %g. — Joseph Hell. — i. 

Beverly. Killed. — Reoben Kenyme. — 1. 

ir .,,/■■/. — Nathaniel Cleves, Samuel Woodbury, William Dodge, 3d. — 3. 
Lynn. Killed. — Abednego tlamsdell, Daniel Townsend, William Flint, 
Thomas Hadley. — 4. 

Wounded. — Joshoa Felt, Timothy Monroe. — 2. 
M i isiah Breed. — I. 

I i M.. Killed, [9.— Wounded, 36.— Missing, 6. 



ORATION 

DELIVERED ON THE FOURTH DAY OF JULY, 1835, BEFORE THE CIT- 
IZENS OF BEVERLY, WITHOUT DISTINCTION OF PARTY. 



When our fathers united in resistance to the oppressive meas- 
ures of the British ministry, a few only of the leading patriots, and 
those principally of Massachusetts, contemplated the establishment 
of an independent government. They were unanimously deter- 
mined to assert their rights, and to stand or fall in their defence ; 
but the mass of the people desired and expected a reconciliation. 
There is preserved a letter of Washington, written from Philadel- 
phia, on the 9th of October, 1774, at which place he was in at- 
tendance, as a member of the first revolutionary Congress. It is 
addressed to Captain McKenzie, an officer of the British army in 
Boston, with whom Washington had served in the former war. It 
probably gives the precise state of the feelings of the patriots, both 
in and out of Congress, with the exception of a very few bold, 
far-reaching, — and I might almost say inspired, — individuals, who 
went far beyond their age, and knew that separation and indepen- 
dence were inevitable. It contains unquestionably the feelings and 
opinions of Washington himself. ' I think,' says he, ' I can an- 
nounce it as a fact, that it is not the wish nor the interest of the 
government of Massachusetts, or any other government upon this 
continent, separately or collectively, to set up for independence ; 
but this you may rely upon, that none of them will ever submit to 
the loss of those valuable rights and privileges, which are essential 
to the inhabitants of every free state, and without which life, liberty, 



526 i \ ri; i ■ i i - ORATIONS. 

and property arc rendered totally insecure.'* The address to the king, 
which was adopted by Congress a short time after tin- letter was 
written, contains thr most solemn protestations of loyalty ; — ami 
after setting forth, in strong language, thr views entertained in 
America ol the ministerial policy, it adds, 'these sentiments are 
extorted from hearts that would much more willingly bleed in your 
Majesty 's service.' 

I have no doubl these and numerous other like protestations were 
entire!\ sincere; and I quote them to show, in the clearest maimer. 
that the revolutionary struggle was a contest lor principle, in \t hich our 
fathers d with reluctance, ami thai the torch ol independence 

was not kindled by the unholy fire of personal ambition. Hut the 
measures ol the British ministry were conceived in the lofty spirit 
ol offended power, dealing with disaffected colonial subjects. The 
sovereign considered the prerogatives of majesty to he invaded. 
The crisis was beyond the grasp of common minds. The govern- 
ment ami people ol England, — ami perhaps I should add the peo- 
ple ot America. — were unconscious that a -tate o( things existed, 
vastly transcending the sphere of ordinary politics. 

It was not possible, that the great controversy should he settled 
h\ any common mode ol adjustment A change in the British 

constitution, by which the colonies should have been admitted to a 

full representation in parliament, would probablj have restored 
harmony. But tins was rejected even by the most enlightened 
friends ol America in the British parliament. After alternate 
measures ol inadequate conciliation and feeble and irritating coer- 
cion, the -word is drawn. The wound of which Chatham -poke. 
— the rii/mts imtnedicabile, the wound lor which, in all the British 
Gilead, there was not owv drop of halm, — the wound, which a 
child, a madman, a thoughtless moment might inflict, and did in- 
flict, — a wretched project to knock the trunnions off a half a dozen 
iron six-pounders, and throw a few barrels of flour into the river at 
Concord, — tin- incurable wound, which not parliaments, nor min- 

nor kings, to the end of time, could heal. — i- struck. When 

\\ shington's Works, Vol. II, p 101, In making tlii- citation, I would 
M Sparks' invaluable collection of the W 
Washington, particular!} the Appendii t.> the second volume, for th. 
lion of tip- histork .il ra itorials made use of in this address 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 527 

the sun went down on the 18th of April, 1775, England and 
America, inflamed as they were, might yet, under a great and gen- 
erous constitutional reform, have been led hy an infant's hand, in 
the silken bonds of union. When the sun rose on the 1 9th ol 
April, hooks of steel could not have held them together. And yet, 
even yet, the hope of an amicable adjustment is not wholly aban- 
doned. The armies of America, under the command of her he- 
loved Washington, are in the field ; but near a month after he was 
appointed, another petition to the king, breathing the warmest spi- 
rit of loyalty, was adopted hy Congress, lint a twelvemonth 
passes by, — that petition is unavailing, — war, flagranl war, rages 
from Carolina to Maine, — the heights of Charlestown had already 
flowed with blood, — Falmouth is wrapped in flames, — seventeen 
thousand German troops, in addition to twenty-live thousand Brit- 
ish veterans, are organized into an army destined to trample the 
spirit of the Revolution into bloody dust, and the people of Amer- 
ica are declared to be out of the protection, though subject to the 
power of the crown, abandoned to a lice hunt, hy all the dogs of 
war. It was then, that the hope of accommodation was abandon- 
ed ; and the cup of reconciliation, drained to its dregs, was cast 
away. A son of Massachusetts, to use his own language, 'crossed 
the Rubicon.' 

In the measures touching the final renunciation of allegiance to 
Great Britain, John Adams took the lead ; the first individual, as it 
seems to me, who formed and expressed a distinct idea of Ameri- 
can independence. In a letter written in the month of October, 
1751, when he was himself hut twenty years old, while France 
and her Indian allies stood, like a wall of fire, against the progress 
of the Americans westward, he predicted the expulsion of the 
French from the continent, and the establishment of an independent 
government, on the basis of the union of the colonics, fortified by a 
controlling naval power. Such was the vision of Adams, before 
the open commencement of the war which removed the French 
from the continent ; long before the new financial policy of Great 
Britain had woke the thunders of James Otis and Patrick Henry; 
twenty-one years before the blood of Lexington was shed. For 
twenty-one years at least, John Adams had cherished the vision of 
independence. He had seen one war fought through in singular 



528 ' \ i.kkti-s ORATIONS. 

rdance with the destinj he had foretold for his country, He 
had caught and fanned the first sparks oi patriotic disaffection. 
His tongue, — his pen, — in thoughts thai breathe and words thai 
burn, — had discoursed to the understandings and hearts of his fel- 
loe citizens. He had spumed the bribes of office ; lie had burst 
the bonds of friendship; and identifying himself, as well he might, 
with his beloved country, he had said to the friend of his heart, — 
who unhappil) differed from him in politics, — in the moment of 
their last separation : I know thai Great Britain has determined 
on her system, and thai ver) fad determines me on mine. You 
know thai 1 have been constant and uniform in opposition to all 
her measures. The die is now casl ; I have passed the Rubicon ; 
swim or sink, live or die, with in} country, is my unalterable de- 
termination.' 

On the 6th of May, L 776, John Adams moved a resolution, in 

Congress, that the colonies, which had not already done SO, should 
establish independent systems of government ; and this resolution, 
after having been strenuously debated for nine da_\s, passed. The 

deed was done, — hut the principle UlUSl he asserted. On the 7th 
of June, b) prei ion- concert, resolution- to that effect were mOV< d 

h\ Richard Henrj Lee. of Virginia, and seconded by John Ad- 
am- of Massachusetts. Thej were debated in committee of the 
whole, on Saturday, the 8th, and again on Monday, the loth, on 
which lasl daj the firsl resolution was reported to the Mouse, in 

the following form: c Thai these united colonics are. and of right 

ought to be, free and independent States; that they are absolved 

from all allegiance to the British crown ; and that all political con- 
nexion between them and the state of Qreal Britain is. and ought 
to he, totalis dissolved.' The final decision of tlii- resolution was 

postponed till the firsl day of July, hut in the meanwhile it was. 

with characteristic simplicity, resolved, in order 'that no timt be 
lust, in case the Congress agree thereto, that a committee be ap- 
pointed to prepare a Declaration, to the effeel of the first resolu- 
tion.' The following day, a committee of five was chosen. Rich- 
ard Henry Lee, who hail moved the resolutions for independence, 
ami would ofcourse have been placed at the head o( the commit- 
tee, had been obliged, by sickness in his family, to go home, and 
Thorn J( "ii. of Virginia, the youngest member of the Con- 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 529 

gress, was elected first on the committee in his place. John Ad- 
ams stood second on the committee ; the other members were Ben- 
jamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Chancellor Livingston. 
Jefferson and Adams were, by their brethren on the committee, 
deputed to draw the Declaration, and the immortal work was per- 
formed by Jefferson. 

Meantime the resolution had not yet been voted in Congress. 
The first day of July came, and at the request of a colony, the 
decision was postponed till the following day. On that day, July 
the 2d, it passed. The discussion of the Declaration continued 
for that and the following day. On the 3d of July, John Adams 
wrote to his wife, in the following memorable strain : ' Yesterday, 
the greatest question was decided, which was ever debated in 
America ; and greater perhaps never was nor will be decided among 
men. A resolution was passed, without one dissenting colony, — 
That these United Slates are, and of right ought to be, free and 
independent States.' In another letter the same day, he wrote, 
'The day is passed ; the second of July, 1776, will be a memora- 
ble epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe it will 
be celebrated by succeeding generations, as the great anniversary 
festival. It ought to be commemorated as the Day of Deliver- 
ance, by solemn acts of devotion to Almighty God. It ought to 
be solemnized with pomp, shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bon- 
fires, and illuminations from one end of the continent to the other, 
from this time forward for ever. You will think me transported 
with enthusiasm ; but I am not. I am well aware of the toil, 
blood, and treasure, that it will cost to maintain this Declaration, 
and support and defend these States ; yet through all the gloom I 
can see rays of light and glory ; I can see that the end is worth 
more than all the means ; that posterity will triumph, although you 
and I may rue, which I hope we shall not/ 

On the following day, the 4th, the Declaration was formally 
adopted by Congress, and proclaimed to the world ; — the most 
important document in the political history of nations. As the day 
on which this solemn manifesto was made public, rather than that 
on which the resolution was adopted in private, was deemed the 
proper date of the country's independence, the Fourth of July has 
been consecrated as the National Anniversary ; and will thus be 
66 



530 I \ I.RETT'S ORATIONS. 

celebrated, with patriotic zeal and pious gratitude, by the citizens 
of America, to the end of time. 

Such it was ever regarded, — as such, for half a century, it had 
been bailed throughoul the Union, in conformity with the predic- 
tion of the illustrious Vdams. But what new sanctity did it ool 
acquire, when cine years ago, and on the fiftieth return of the aus- 
picious anniversary, il pleased Heaven to signalize it by the mosl 
remarkable and touching Providence, which merely human history 
record- ! 

W'lm among us, fellow citizen-, of years to comprehend the 
event, but fell an awe-struck sense of direct interposition, when 
told that Jefferson and A.dams, — one the author of the immortal 
Declaration, — the other his immediate associate in preparing it. — 
•the Colossus who sustained it in debate,' had departed this life 
ther on the day, which their united act had raised into an era 
in the history of the world! Whose heart was not touched at 
beholding these patriarchs, — after all their joint labors, — their lofty 
rivalry, — their passing collisions, — their returning affections, — their 
long enjoyment of the blessings the} had dour so much to procure 
for their country, — closing their eventful career, on that day which 
thej would themselves have chosen as their last, — that day which 
the kindesl friend could not have wished them to survive! 

This is the day, fellow citizens of Beverly, which we have mel 
to con ii ni morate ; — w Inch you have done me the honor. — an hum- 
hie stranger, known but to a ver) few of you, — to 'unite me to join 
you in celebrating. Mad 1 looked onl) to my personal convenience, 
I could have (ovi\u\ a justification for excusing myself from the per- 
formance of the duty you have assigned me. Had 1 followed mj 
strong inclination, 1 should have been a listener to-day. A single 
consideration ha- induced me to obe) your call; and that is, that 
ii proceeds from mj fellow citizens, without distinction of pari). 
1 have ever been of opinion, that the anniversar) of our national 
independence is never so properly celebrated, as when it brings us 
all together, as members of on< greal family. Our beloved and 
venerated Washington, in his farewell address, has declared party 
spirit to be 'the worst enemj ' of a popular government ; and that 
• the ' fforl ought to be, l»_\ the force of public opinion, to mitigate 
and assuage it.' 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 531 

It is of little avail, to agitate the question, whether the existence 
of parties, in a free state, is an unmingled evil, or an evil in some 
measure compensated by a mixture of good. It is unavailing, be- 
cause it may be taken for granted, that in all free states, — in all 
countries in which representative governments exist, and places of 
honor, trust, and emolument are elective, where the press is free, 
and thought is free, and speech is free, — there parties must and 
will arise, by the very necessity of our nature. They cannot be 
avoided, while the state remains a free one ; — and no force or in- 
fluence could be applied to control them, that would not be at the 
same time, destructive of liberty. There are no parties in Turkey, 
and none in China, though there are frequent rebellions in both. 
There were no parties in France, under Louis XIV. But wher- 
ever the constitution gives to the people a share in the government, 
— there parties spring up, under the influence of the different in- 
terests, opinions, and passions of men. The zeal and violence with 
which the party controversies are waged, will depend on the habits 
and temper of the people ; the nature of the questions at stake ; 
the mode in which they are decided ; the facility with which the 
will of the majority takes effect. In some countries, the dissen- 
sions of party have been kept almost always within comparatively 
reasonable limits ; and have never or rarely proceeded so far as to 
endanger the peace of society, shake the security of property, or 
bring upon the community the terrors of bloodshed and civil war. 
In other countries, the operation of causes too numerous to be de- 
tailed, has made the pages of their domestic annals a bloody record 
of violence and crime, of remorseless and maddening convulsions, 
in which peace, property, and life, have made common shipwreck. 

In our own country, and in that from which, for the most part, we 
are descended, — but especially in our own country, — party dissensions 
have probably been attended with as little evil as is compatible with 
the frailty of our natures. It is generally admitted, that the opposite 
parties have acted as watchful sentinels of each other. It would 
not be easy to point out any free country in history, where so few 
of those deplorable acts of violence which go to the destruction of 
peace and life, — which constitute that most frightful of all despot- 
isms, a reign of terror, — are set down to the reproach of a people. 
It has never happened in New-England, — and God grant it never 



533 i;vi:rett's orations. 

may happen, — that law If— assemblages, inflamed by party rage, 
have encountered each other, with murderous weapons, in the 
streets; and never, that a triumphanl faction, feeling power and 

tting right, has made the -word of public justice to wreak the 
v< ngeance of party feeling. 

Man) causes might be assigned for an effect, which is so honor- 
able to the character of the people, and which has contributed so 
much to tlic prosperity of the country. I take it a main cause 
ha-^ been the thorough!} popular organization of the government, 
and the frequent recurrence of the < lections. When the majorit) 
of the people, al regularl) returning periods of one, two, four, or 
six years, have it in their honor to bestow, wherever they please, 
all the places of trust and power, there is little temptation to pro- 
cei d by violence againsl the opposite part). There is no need of 
resorting to banishment or the scaffold, to displace an ohnoxious 
ruler or an odious opponent, w hen a single twelvemonth will reduce 
him to the level of the rest of the community. It is true the com- 
munity is kept agitated and excited ; but it is not kept aimed. 
Electioneering takes the place of all the other forms and manifest- 
ations of part} spirit; — and though the paroxysm of a contested 

ion is not in itself a condition ofsociet} favorable to it- peace 
or prosperity, il is far better than cruel hereditary feuds, and bloody 
contests of rival states, like those \\ hich stain the annals of ancienl 
e. and of the Italian republics. 
Other causes that assuage the violence of party, are the general 
diffusion of knowledge ami the multiplication of liberal pursuits. 
Ignorance is the hotbed of part) prejudice, and part} detraction. 
\ people win" read little, and that little exclusively the pro- 
duction of the partisan pre—, may hi' grossl) duped as to the 
condition and interests of the country. — the designs and actions ol 

parties, — and the character- of men. Bui an enlightened people, 

whose minds are stored with knowledge, — who read, observi 
n Bed ; — who know the hi-tory of the country, and a- a porti on 
ol' ii. the history of panic-, instead of being a pre) to the ex 
rated statements of the political press, form an independent opin- 
ion of men and things, and are able to correct misstatements and 
rejudge pi The well-informed mind has other objects ol 

interest and pursuit. In proportion to the intelligence oi a com- 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 533 

munity, will be the diversity of its occupations and the variety of 
the objects, which invite and receive the attention of active minds. 
Political interests are less keenly pursued in such a community, 
than where they form the exclusive object of attention. Other 
great questions connected with religious and moral improvement, 
social progress, the cause of education, and the advancement of 
the elegant and useful arts engage the thoughts of the active and 
the inquisitive. These liberal pursuits bring those together, whom 
politics separate ; and show men that their opponents are neither 
the knaves, nor the fools they might otherwise have thought them. 

But especially the spirit of patriotism may be looked to, as the 
great corrective of party spirit. Whatsoever revives the recollec- 
tions of exploits and sacrifices, of which all share the pride as all 
partake the benefits, — 4he ; memory of the pilgrim fathers and revo- 
lutionary patriots, — the common glories of the American name, — 
serves to moderate the growing bitterness of party animosity. The 
unkind feelings kindled by present struggles are subdued, by the 
generous emotions with which we contemplate the glorious events 
of our history and the illustrious characters with which it is adorned. 
It is scarcely possible for men who have just united in an act of 
patriotic commemoration ; — who have repeated to each other, with 
mutual pride, the names of a common ancestry ; — who have trod 
together the field of some great and decisive struggle, — who have 
assembled to join in recalling the merits of some friend and orna- 
ment of his country, — to go away and engage with unmitigated 
rancor, in the work of party defamation. The spirit of party, 
which yields nothing to these humanizing influences, is not the 
laudable spirit of political independence, but malignant and selfish 
passion ; — and that patriotism, which expires in wordy commenda- 
tion of the acts or principles of our forefathers, without softening 
the asperities which exist between their children at the present day, 
is hollow-hearted pretence. 

Of all the occasions rightfully redeemed from the contamination 
of party feeling and consecrated to union, harmony, and patriotic 
affection, the day we celebrate stands first, — for on what day can 
we meet as brothers, if the fourth of July sunders us as partisans ? 
It is an occasion toward which no man, and no party can feel in- 
different ; — in which no man and no party can arrogate an exclu- 



•")•) 1 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

save interest; for which ever] American citizen, in proportion as 

he has sense to perceive the blessings which have fallen to his lot, 
and sagacity to mark the connexion of the independence of Amer- 
ica with the progress of lihem throughout the world, must feel the 
same profound reverence. It is for this reason thai I ever rejoice, 
when it is proposed to celebrate the Fourth of July, without dis- 
tinction iif party : for this reason, that on this day, — and I hope 
not on this day alone. — I ha\e a hand of fell owship and a heart 
warm with kind feeling, for every patriotic brother of the great 
American family. I would dc\ote this day. not to the discussion 
of topics which divide the people, but to the memory of the events 
and of the men which unite their affections. I would call up, in 
the most imposing recollection, the venerated images of our patriotic 
anci stors. I would strive to place myself in the actual presence 
of that circle of sages, whose act has immortalized the day. As 
they rise one by one to the eye of a grateful imagination, my heart 
hows down at the sight of their venerable feature-, their gra) hairs, 
and their honorable scars ; and every angry feeling settles into rev- 
erence and love. 

It has -' cum d to me. fellow citizens, that I could select no topic 
more appropriate to the occasion, — none more in harmony with 
the spiril of the day. and the feelings, which have led you to unite 
in celebrating it. — than the characti r >A \\ ashington. ( lonsidered 
as the great military leader of the Revolution, il is admitted, on 
ever) side, that his agency in establishing the independence of the 
country, was more importanl than that of any other individual. It 
is not less certain, that, but for the cooperation of Washington, in 
the federal convention, and the universal understanding thai he was 
to fill the chief magistracy, under the new government, the Consti- 
tution of these United States would not have been adopted. Let 
me not seem unjust to others. The perils and trials of the times, — 
the voice of a bleeding coun try. — the high tone of p ublic feeling , 
— the sympathy of an astonished and delighted age. — the inanifc-; 
indication- of a providential purpose to raise up a new state in the 
family of nation-, called into action a rare assemblage of w i-e. gpur- 
-. and patriotic men. To numbers of them the meed of well- 
deserved applause has been, and in all time will be, gratefully 
accord) d. M\ ovi o poor voice has nevet been ilenl in their prai i 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 535 

and when hushed on that theme, may it never be listened to on any 
other. But of Washington alone it has been said, with an apti- 
tude which all feel, and an emphasis which goes to the heart, that 
he was ' First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his 
countrymen.' 

Nor let it be thought, fellow citizens, that this is an exhausted 
subject. It can never be exhausted, while the work of his hands, 
— the monuments of his achievements, — and the fruits of his coun- 
sels, remain. On the contrary, it is a subject which every age 
will study, under new lights ; which has enduring relations, not 
only with the fortunes of America, but the general cause of liberty. 
I have, within a few weeks, seen an official declaration of General 
Santander, the enlightened chief magistrate of the republic of New 
Grenada, in which he avows his intention to decline a re-election, 
and assigns the example of Washington as the cause. I do not 
believe it within the compass of the most active imagination to do 
full justice to the effect on mankind of having embodied, in the 
conspicuous living illustration of the character of Washington, the 
great principles which should govern the conduct of a patriotic chief 
magistrate, in a representative government. For myself, I am well 
persuaded that the present generation is better able to do justice to 
this character, than that in which he lived. We behold it more 
nearly than our predecessors, entire, in all its parts. We approach 
it free from the prejudices, of which, under the influence of the 
passions of the day, even the purest and most illustrious men are 
the subjects while they live. Every day furnishes new proofs of 
the importance of his services, in their connexion with American 
liberty ; — and I am sure, that instead of sinking into comparative 
obscurity, with the lapse of time, the character of Washington, a 
century hence, will be the subject of a warmer and a more general 
enthusiasm, on the part of the friends of liberty, than at the pres- 
ent day. The great points in his character are living centres of a 
self-diffusive moral influence, which is daily taking effect, and 
which is destined still more widely to control the minds and excite 
the imaginations of men. 

It is, in all cases, difficult for contemporaries, or the next gener- 
ation, to do full justice to the riches of a character, destined to 
command the respect of all time. It is a part of the character, 



536 I \ I. RETT'S ORATIONS. 

that it contained within it. qualities SO true, that, while they eon- 
flict, perhaps, with the interests, passions, and prejudices of the 
dav. they justify themselves in the greal experience of ages. The 
planets, as we behold them, are sometimes stationary, and some- 
times seem to retrograde. I>ut it is only to the imperfect sense of 
man, thai the} stand still, and move backward ; while, in reality, 
they are ever rolling in majesty along their orbits, and will be found, 
at the appointed season, to have compassed the heavens. Insti ad 
of expecting at once to sound the depths of a character like Wash- 
ington's, it requires all our study and all our vigilance, not to meas- 
ure such a character on the scale of our own littleness; not to esti- 
mate it from a partial development of its influence. A great 
character, founded op the living rock of principle, is, in fact, not a 
solitary phenomenon, to be at once perceived, limited, and described. 
It is a dispensation of Providence, designed to have not merely an 
immediate, but a continuous, progressive, and never-ending agency. 
It survives the man who possessed it; survives his age, — perhaps 
his country, — his language. These, in the lapse of time, may 
disappear, and be forgotten. Governments, tribes of men, chase 
each other, like the shadows of summer cloud-, on a plain. Bui 
an earthly immortality belongs to a great and good character. Hi— 
in,-, embalms it; it lives in it- moral influence; in its authority ; 
in its example; in the memory of the words and deeds in which 
it was manifested; and as every age add- to the illustrations of its 
efficacy, it ma\ chance to be the besl understood by a reunite pos J 
terity. 

There is, however, bul a single point of view, in which the lim- 
its of the occasion will allow me to dwell on this greal theme, — 

re suitable for a volum • than the address of an hour; — and that 

i-. tlh early formation of tfa character of Washington. It musl 
have occurred to you all. in reading the histor) of the Revolution, 
thai from the period at which Washington assumed the chief com- 
mand, he w as not merel) the h< ad of the arm) . bul to all practical 
purposes, the chief magistrate of the country. Congress, in fact, 
conferred on him, by one of their resolutions, powers thai may, 
without exaggeration, be called dictatorial. 'The point, then, on 
which I would dwell, is this, thai it was absolute!) necessarj for 
the pr of th< Revolution, — not, that a character like 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 537 

Washington's, perfectly qualified for the duties of the camp and 
the council, should have gradually formed itself; this would not 
have sufficed for the salvation of the country, in the critical, em- 
barrassed, often disastrous, state of affairs. It was necessary, not 
that, after having for some years languished or struggled on, be- 
neath incompetent, unsuccessful, unpopular, and perhaps faithless 
chieftains, the country should at last have found her Washington, 
when her spirit was broken, — her resources exhausted, — her char- 
acter discredited, — her allies disgusted, — in short, when Washing- 
ton himself could not have saved her. No, it strikes the reflecting 
mind to have been necessary, absolutely necessary, at the very out- 
set of the contest, to have a leader possessed of all the qualities, 
which were actually found in him. He cannot be waited for, even 
if by being waited for, he is sure to be found. The organization 
of the army may be a work of difficulty and time, — the plan of 
confederation may drag tardily along, — the finances may plunge 
from one desperate expedient to another, — expedition after expedi- 
tion may fail ; — but it is manifestly indispensable, that from the 
first, there should be one safe governing mind, one clear, unclouded 
intellect, one resolute will, — one pure and patriotic heart., — placed 
at the head of affairs by common consent. One such character 
there must be, for the very reason that all other resources are want- 
ing ; — and with one such character, all else in time will be supplied. 
The storm sails may fly in ribbons to the wind ; mast and top-mast 
may come down, — and every billow of the ocean boil through the 
gaping seams ; — and the brave ship, by the blessing of Heaven, 
may yet ride out the tempest. But when the winds, in all their 
fury, are beating upon her, and the black and horrid rocks of a lee 
shore are already hanging over the deck, and all other hope and de- 
pendence fail, if then the chain cable gives way, she must, with 
all on board, be dashed to pieces. I own I regard it, though but 
a single view of the character of Washington, as one of transcen- 
dent importance, that the commencement of the Revolution found 
him already prepared and mature for the work ; and that on the 
day on which his commission was signed by John Hancock, — the 
immortal 17th of June, 1775, — a day on which Providence kept 
an even balance with the cause, and while it took from us our War- 
ren, gave us our Washington, — he was just as consummate a lead- 
67 



538 i\i:kett's oration-. 

er for peace or for war, as when, eight years after, he resigned that 
commission at Annapolis. 

His father, a Virginia gentleman in moderate circumstances of 
fortune, died when George Washington was but ten years old. 
His surviving parent, — a woman lit to be the mother of Washing- 
ton, — bestowed the tenderest care upon the education of her oldest 
and darling son ; and instilled into his mind those moral and reli- 
gious principles, that love of order, and what is better, that love of 
justice, and devout reliance on Providence, which formed the basis 
of his character. His elder brother. Lawrence, the child of a for- 
mer marriage, was a captain in the British army. He was ordered 
w ith his company to Jamaica, in 1741, and was present at the capture 
of Porto Bello, and at the disastrous attack on Carthagena, to w hich 
Thompson so pathetically alludes in the Seasons. In honor of Admi- 
ral Vernon, who commanded those expeditions, Captain Lawrence 
Washington gave the name of Mount Vernon to the beautiful estate 
which he purchased on the banks of the Potomac, and which, at 
his death, he bequeathed to his brother George. Influenced no 
doubt by the example of his brother, but led by his advice to en- 
gage in the other branch of the service, George Washington, al till- 
age of fourteen years, sought and obtained a midshipman's warrant 
in the British navy. Shall he engage in this branch of the milita- 
ry service, on which his heart is bent? Shall hi- feet ijuit the firm 
soil of his country ? Shall he enter a line of duty and promotion, 
in which, if lie escape the hazards and gain the prizes of his career, 
he can scarce fail to be carried to distant scenes, — to bestow his 
i nergies on foreign expedition-, in remote seas, perhaps in another 
hemisphere; in which he will certainly fail of the opportunity of 
preparing himself, in the camp and field of the approaching war, 
to command the armies of the Revolution : and not improbably 
-ink under the pestilential climate of the West Indies and the 

Spanish Main? Such, indeed, seems almost inevitably his career. 
He desires it ; bis brother, standing in the place of a parent, ap- 
prov< - ii • the warrant is obtained. I>ut Dotbing could overcome 
the invincible repugnance of his widowed mother. She sav» onl] 
theJangers which awaited the health, thejapjals^ajul the life of 
her favorite child, — and her influence prevailed. Thus the jroice 
of his high destiny firsl spoke to the affections of the youthful hero. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 539 

through the fond yearnings of a mother's heart. He abandoned 
his commission, remained beneath the paternal roof, and was saved 
to the country. 

The early education of Washington was confined to those branch- 
es of useful knowledge commonly taught in English grammar 
schools. But he soon entered upon a course of practical educa- 
tion singularly adapted to form him for his future career. He is to 
lead an active and a laborious life, and he must carry to it a healthy 
frame. Destined for the command of armies, to direct the move- 
ment and the supply of troops, — to select the routes of march and 
the points of attack and defence, — to wrestle with privation, hun- 
ger, and the elements ; — raised up, above all, to perform the part 
of a great and patriotic chieftain, in the revolutionary councils of a 
new country, where the primeval forest had just begun to yield to 
the settler's axe, and most of the institutions of society, and the 
thoughts and prejudices of a good part of the population are those 
of an early stage of improvement, and, so to express it, to some 
extent, of frontier life; — with this destiny, how shall he be educa- 
ted ? A great extent and variety of literary accomplishments are 
evidently not the things most required. 

It is impossible to read the account of his early years, without 
feeling that he was thrown upon an occupation, which, without 
carrying on its outside any thing particularly attractive to a young 
man, able to indulge his taste in the choice of a pursuit, was un- 
questionably of all pursuits, the best adapted to form the youthful 
Washington. At the period when he came forward into life, the 
attention of men of adventure, in Virginia, had begun to turn to- 
ward the occupation of the regions west of the Blue Ridge and 
Alleghany mountains ; — a region now filled with a dense popula- 
tion, with all the works of human labor, and all the bounties of a 
productive soil ; then shaded by the native forest, — infested with 
its savage inhabitants, and claimed as the domain of France. The 
enterprise of the English colonists of the Atlantic coast was be- 
ginning to move boldly forward into the interior. The destiny of 
the Anglo-Saxon race, transplanted to this continent, had too long 
awaited its fulfilment. The charter of Virginia, as well as of 
several other of the colonies, extended from sea to sea ; — but of 
the broad region, which lay to the south and east of the Ohio, a 



540 i\ EBETT'S cit LTIONS. 

country as highly favored of nature, as any on which heaven sends 
rain and sunshine, the comparatively narrow belt to the east of the 
Blue Ridge, was all thai was yel occupied by compact settlements. 
But the hold huntsman had followed the deer to the upper waters 
of the Potomac ; and trapped the beaver in his still, hereditary 
pool, among the western slopes of the All< ghany. The intrepid 
woodsman, in a few Instances, had fixed his log cabin on the fertile 
meadows which are watered by the trihutaries of the Ohio. Their 
reports of the riches of the unoccupied region excited the curiosity 
of their countrymen, and jusl a- Washington was passing from 
boyhood to youth, the enterprise and capital of Virginia were 
seeking a new field for exercise and investment, in the unoccupied 
public domain beyond the mountains. The business of a surveyor 
immediately became one of great importance and trust, for no sur- 
veys were executed by the government. To this occupation, the 
youthful Washington, not yet sixteen years of age. and well fur- 
nished with the requisite mathematical knowledge, zealously de- 
voted himself. Some of his family connexions possessed titles to 
large portions of public land, which he was employed with them 
in surveying. Thu-. at a period of life. when, in a more quiet and 
advanced stage of society, the intelligent youth is occupied in the 
tentary studies of the schools and colleges, Washington was 
running the surveyor's chain through the fertile valleys of the Blue 
Ridge and the Alleghany mountains ; passing days and weeks in 
the wilderness, beneath the shadow of eternal forests; — listening 
to the voice of the waterfall-, which man's art had not yet sel to 
the healthful music of the saw -mill or the trip-hammer; — reposing 
from the labors of the day on a hear-.-kin. with his feet to the blaz- 
ing lo_'s .if a camp-fire ; and sometime- -tallied fr the deep -lum- 
bers of careless hard-working youth, by the alarm of the Indian 
war whoop. Thi- was the gymnastic school, in which Washing- 
ton was brought up ; in which his quick glance was formed, des- 
tined to range hereafter across the battle field, through clouds ol 
smoke, ami hii-tlin'_ r rows of bayonets ; — the school in which his 
senses, weaned from the taste for those detestable indulgi nces un- 
called pleasures, in which the flower of adolescence so often lan- 
guishes and pine- away, were early braced up to the sinewy man- 
hood, which becomes the 

Lord of the lion heart and i igli I y 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 541 

There is preserved, among the papers of Washington, a letter 
written to a friend, while he was engaged on his first surveying 
tour, and when he was consequently but sixteen years of age. I quote 
a sentence from it, in spite of the homeliness of the details, for 
which I like it the better, and because I wish to set before you not 
an ideal hero wrapped in cloudy generalities and a mist of vague 
panegyric, but the real, identical man, with all the peculiarities of 
his life and occupation. ' Your letter,' says he, ' gave me the more 
pleasure, as 1 received it among barbarians and an uncouth set of 
people. Since you received my letter of October last, I have not 
slept above three or four nights in a bed ; but after walking a good 
deal all the day, I have lain down before the fire, upon a little hay, 
straw, fodder, or a bear-skin, whichever was to be had, — with man, 
wife, and children, like dogs and cats ; and happy is he who gets 
the berth nearest the fire. Nothing would make it pass off tolera- 
bly, but a good reward. A doubloon is my constant gain every 
day that the weather will permit my going out, and sometimes six 
pistoles. The coldness of the weather will not allow of my mak- 
ing a long stay, as the lodging is rather too cold for the time of 
year. I have never had my clothes off, but have lain and slept in 
them, except the few nights 1 have been in Fredericksburg.' If 
there is an individual in the morning of life, in this assembly, who 
has not yet made his choice, between the flowery path of indul- 
gence and the rough ascent of honest industry, — if there is one, 
who is ashamed to get his living by any branch of honest labor, — 
let him reflect, that the youth who was carrying the theodolite and 
surveyor's chain, through the mountain passes of the Alleghanies, 
in the month of March, — sleeping on a bundle of hay before the 
fire, in a settler's log cabin, and not ashamed to boast, that he did 
it for his doubloon a day, is George Washington ; — that the life he 
led trained him up to command the armies of United America ; — 
that the money he earned was the basis of that fortune which ena- 
bled him afterwards to bestow his services, without reward, on a 
bleeding and impoverished country ! 

For three years was the young Washington employed, the great- 
er part of the time, and whenever the season would permit, in this 
laborious and healthful occupation ; — and I know not if it would 
be deemed unbecoming, were a thoughtful student of our history to 



.") ]2 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

say, thai he could almost hear the voice of Providence, in the lan- 
•_iu-r nl" Milton, announce its high purpose: — 

To exercise him in the wilderness; — 
There he shall first la) down the rudiments 
Of U\< greal warfare, ere I send him forth 

To conquer! 

At this period, the military service, in all countries, was sorely 
infested l>\ a loathsome disease, not known to the ancients, — -up- 
posed to have been generated in some pestilential region of the 
East ; — and brought back to Europe by the crusaders, an ample 
revenge for the desolation of Asia. Long since robbed of it> ter- 
rors, by the sublime discovery of Jenner, it is now hardly known, 
excepl by the memorj of its ravages. But before the middle of 
the lasl century, it rarel) happened that a large body of troops 
was brought together, without the appearance among them of this 
terrific malady, whose approach was more dreaded, often more 
destructive, than that of the foe. Shortly before the career of 
Washington commenced, this formidable disease bad been brought 
within the control of human art, by the practice of inoculation, w hich 
w as introduced into England from Turkey, by the wife of the British 
ambassador, and into this neighborhood, by Dr Zabdiel Boylston, 
in the first quarter of the eighteenth century. An unfortunate 
prejudice, however, arose in many mind- againsl the practice of 
inoculation. It was believed to be an unwarrantable tempting of 
Providence, voluntarily to take into the frame so dangerous a dis- 
ease. In many place-, it- introduction was resisted by all the 
force of popular prejudice and sometimes of popular violence; and 
in the colon} of Virginia, it was prohibited by law. At the age 
of nineteen, George Washington accompanied his elder brother, 
already mentioned, and whose health was now infirm, to the island 
of Barbadoes. Here he was attacked by this terrific malady, in 
tin natural way; but skilful medical attendance was at band, the 
climate mild, the season favorable, and on the twenty-fifty daj from 
the commencement of the disease, he bad passed through it in 
safety. He was thus, before his military career commenced, pi 
beyond the reach of danger from this cause. In the very first 
campaign of the revolutionary war. the small po\ was one oi the 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 543 

most dangerous enemies with which the troops under Washington 
were obliged to contend. It broke out in the British army in Bos- 
ton, and was believed by General Washington to have been prop- 
agated in the American camp, by persons purposely inoculated and 
sent into the American lines. However this might be, it was ne- 
cessary to subject the American army to the process of inoculation, 
at a period, when, destitute as they were of powder, an attack was 
daily expected from the royal army. But the beloved commander 
was safe. 

The time had now arrived, when the military education of Wash- 
ington, properly so called, was to commence. And in the circum- 
stances of this portion of his life, if I am not greatly deceived, 
will be found a connexion of the character and conduct of this 
illustrious man, with the fortunes and prospects of his country, 
which cannot be too much admired, nor too gratefully acknowl- 
edged. The struggle between the governments of France and 
England, for the exclusive possession of the American continent, 
was a principal source of the European wars of the last century. 
The successes of each contest furnished new subjects of jealousy, 
and peace was but a cessation of arms, preparatory to another 
struggle. The English colonies, favored by the maritime superior- 
ity of the mother country, had possessed themselves of the Atlan- 
tic shore. The French adventurers, who excelled in the art of 
gaining the affections of the aborigines, having entrenched them- 
selves at the mouth of the St Lawrence and the Mississippi, aimed, 
by a chain of posts through the whole interior, at all events, to 
prevent the progress of the English westward, and as circumstances 
should favor the design, to confine them within constantly reduced 
limits ; — ultimately, if possible, to bring the whole coast into sub- 
jection to France. This struggle retarded for a century the pro- 
gress of civilization on this continent. During that period, it sub- 
jected the whole line of the frontier to all the horrors of a remorse- 
less border and savage war. It resulted, at last, in the entire 
expulsion of the French from the continent ; in the reduction of 
the British dominion to a portion of that territory which had been 
wrested from the French ; and in the establishment of the inde- 
pendence of the United States of America. Every thing preced- 
ing the year 1748, when the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was con- 



.".11 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

eluded, m;i\ be considered as preliminary to that grand series of 
events, which makes the day we celebrate an era in the history of 
the world, and in which the firsl part was performed by Wash- 
ington. 

Previous to this period, the fertile region west of the Alleghany 
mountains, and now containing a third part of the population of 
the United States, was unoccupied by civilized man. In the west- 
ern pan of Pennsylvania and Virginia, in Kentuck) and all the 
Siatc- directly south of it. in the entire region north-west of the 
Ohio, and west of the Mississippi, there did not, less than ninety 
years ago, arise the -moke of a single hamlet, in which the descen- 
dant- of Englishmen dwelt. ( )n the return of peace between France 
and England, in the year L 748, the Ohio company was formed. Its 
object was the occupation and settlement of the fertile district south- 
east of the Ohio and west of the Alleghany mountains. It consisted 
of a small number of gentlemen in Virginia and .Man land, with 
one associate in London, .Mr Thomas Hanbury, a distinguished 
merchant of that city. The elder brothers of George Washing- 
ton were actively engaged in the enterprise. A grant of five 
hundred thousand acres of land was obtained from the crown, and 
the companj were obliged, by the terms of the -rant, to introduce 
a hundred families into the settlement within -even year-, to build 
a fort, and provide a garrison adequate to its defence. Out of 
this small germ of private enterprise, sprung the old French war. 
and by no doubtful chain of cause and effect, the war of American 
independence. 

The ( )hio ( lompany proceeded to execute the conditions of the 
grant. Preparations for opening a trade with the Indians were 
commenced, — a road aero-- the mountains was laid out. substantially 
on the line of the present national road, and an agent was sent to 

conciliate the Indian tribes, on the subjeel of the new settlement. 

In 1752, the tribes entered into a treat) with the Virginia com- 
missioners, in which they agreed not to molesl any settlements, 

which might he formed b) the company on the -outh-ea-tern side 

of the Ohio. On the faith of this compact, twelve families of ad- 
ventun i- from Virginia, headed bj ( laptain (ii-t. immediately estab- 
lished themsi lv< -. on tin- bank- of the Monongahela. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 545 

The French colonial authorities in Canada viewed these move- 
ments with jealousy. Although Great Britain and France had 
lately concluded a treaty of peace, emissaries were sent from 
Canada to the Indians on the Ohio, to break up the friendly rela- 
tions just established with Virginia. Some of the traders were 
seized and sent to France ; and, by order of the French ministry, a 
fort was immediately commenced on Buffalo river, as a position, 
from which the Indians could be controlled and the Virginians 
held in check. These proceedings were promptly reported to 
Governor Dinwiddie, by the agents of the Ohio company ; and the 
Governor immediately determined to make them the subject of re- 
monstrance to the commandant of the French fort. 

To transmit such a remonstrance from Williamsburg in Virginia 
to the shores of lake Erie, was, in the state of the country at that 
time, no easy matter. A distance of three or four hundred miles 
was to be travelled, the greater part of the way through a wilder- 
ness. Mountains were to be climbed and rivers crossed. Tribes 
of savages were to be passed, by the way ; and all the hazards of 
an unfriendly Indian frontier, in a state of daily increasing irritation, 
were to be encountered. To all these difficulties the season of the 
year, (it was now the month of November), added obstacles all but 
insuperable. It is scarcely matter of reproach therefore, that the 
mission was declined, by those, to whom Governor Dinwiddie at 
first tendered it. 

But there was one at hand, by whom no undertaking was ever 
declined, however severe or perilous, which was enjoined by duty, 
or which promised benefit to the country. On his return from 
Barbadoes in 1752, George Washington, then in the twentieth year 
of his age, received his commission as adjutant of militia in the 
northern neck of Virginia. The colony was divided into four 
military districts, the following year, and Washington received the 
same appointment in one of them. An expectation of approaching 
hostilities prevailed, and the militia were every where drilled, as in 
preparation for actual service. In this state of things, Governor 
Dinwiddie proposed to Major Washington, to undertake the mission 
to the French commandant. Washington had just received by 
bequest the fine estate of Mount Vernon ; but he accepted the 
68 



5 Hi RETT'S ORATIONS. 

tendered appointment with alacrity, and started on bis journej th< 
ing da) . 

At the frontier settlements on the Monongahela above alluded to, 
he was joined by Captain Gist, an intelligent and brave pioneei oi 
civilization, and by sonic Indians of rank in their tribe, who were 
to add their remonstrances to those of the Governor of Virginia. 
Vfter encountering all the hardships of the season and the wilder- 
and various embarrassments arising from the policy of the 
French, Washington penetrated to their post and performed bis 
errand. On the return of the party, their horses failed, from the 
inclemency of the weather and the severity of the march; and 
iiejnii and bis companion Gist, (lefi by their friendly Indians), 
with their packs on their shoulders and guns in their hands, were 
compelled to make the dreary journey on foot. They were soon 
joined by Indians in the French interest, who had dogged diem. 
ever since they Lefi the French fort. One of diem exerted all the 
arts of savage cunning, to gel possession of the arms of Washington, 
and lead him and his companion astraj in the forest. Baffled l>_\ 
their wariness and self-possession, and when he perceived diem, al 
pight-fall, worn down, hy die fatigue of the march, the savage 
turned deliberately, and at a distance of fifteen steps, fired at 
Washington and his companion. The Indian's rifle missed its aim. 
Washington and Gis1 immediately sprang upon and seized him. 
(li-i was desirous of putting him to death, hut Washington would 
not permit his life to be taken, justly forfeited as it was. After 
detaining him to a late hour, day allowed him to escape ; and pur- 
sued their own journey, worn and wear) as they were, through the 
li\i long watches of a December night. 

Well knowing that the savages were on their trail, they dared 
not stop, till they reached the Alleghany, a clear and rapid stream, 
which the) hoped to be able to cross on the ice; — the only poor 
consolation which the) promised themselves from the stinging 
severit) of the weather. The river unfortunately was neither 
frozen across nor wholly open : hut fringed with broken ice for 

fift) yards On each shore and the middle stream filled with cal 

ice, furiousl) drifting down the current. With one poor hatchet. 
io use Washington's own expression, the) commenced the con- 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 



547 



struction of a raft. It was a weary day's work, and not completed 
till sunset. They launched it upon the stream, but were soon so 
surrounded and crushed, by drifting masses of ice, that they ex- 
pected every moment, that their raft would go to pieces, and they 
themselves perish. Washington put out his pole to stop the raft, 
till the fields of ice should float by ; but the raft was driven forward 
so furiously upon his pole, that he himself holding to it, was 
violently thrown into the river, where it was ten feet deep. He 
saved his life by clinging to a log, but, unable to force the raft to 
either shore, Washington and his companion left it, and passed the 
night on an island in the middle of the river. So intense was the 
cold, that the hands and feet of Captain Gist, hardy and experienced 
woodsman as he was, were frozen. Happily, however, they were 
enabled, on the following morning, to cross to the opposite bank of 
the river, on the ice, — a circumstance which no doubt saved them 
from the tomahawk of the unfriendly Indians. 

Such was the commencement of the public services of the youth- 
ful hero, as related with admirable simplicity by himself, in his 
journal of the expedition. That of his companion Gist, though 
never yet printed, is still preserved;* and states, much more 
particularly than it is clone by Washington, the murderous attempt 
of the Indian. Such was the journey undertaken by Washington 
at a season of the year, when the soldier goes into quarters, — in a 
state of weather, when the huntsman shrinks from the inclemency 
of the skies ; amidst perils, from which his escape was all but 
miraculous : and this, too, not by a pennyless adventurer, fighting 
his way, through desperate risks, to promotion and bread ; but by 
a young man, already known most advantageously in the commu- 
nity, and who, by his own honorable industry and the bequest of a 
deceased brother, was already in possession of a fortune. In this 
his first official step, taken at the age of twenty-one, Washington 
displayed a courage, resolution, prudence, disinterestedness, and 
fortitude, on a small scale, though at the risk of his life, which 
never afterwards failed to mark his conduct. He seemed to spring 
at once into public life, considerate, wary, and fearless; and that 

* It will appear in the next volume of the Collections of the Massachusetts His- 
torical Society. 



548 i:\ ERETT'S ORATIONS. 

Providence, which destined him for oilier and higher duties. 
manifestly ext( aded a piotecting shield over his beloved head. 
The answer of the French commandant to the remonstrance of 

the Governor of Virginia was evasive and unsatisfactory. A re- 
giment was immediately enlisted; Major Washington, on the 
ground of youth and inexperience, declined being a candidate for 
the place of colonel, but solicited and accepted the second com- 
mand. He hastened with two companies to the scene of action, 
beyond the AUeghanies; and, by the death of Colonel Fry, was 
soon left in full command of the regiment. He had never served 
a campaign nor facet! an enemy. The French and Indians were 
in force on the Ohio. They had already commenced the erection 
of Fort Duquesne, on the site of Pittsburgh : and, hearing of tin ap- 
proach of Washington, sent forward a detachment of French and 
Indian^, to reconnoitre his position. Informed by friendly Indians 
of the send advance of this detachment, Washington, who was 
never taken l>\ surprise, forced a march upon them in the night, 
and overtook them in their place of concealment. A skirmish 
ensued, in which, with the loss of one man killed and two or three 
wounded, the party of French and Indians were defeated : ten of 
them being killed, including their commander Jumonville, and 
twenty-one made prison 

This hold advance, how ever, w as necessarilj followed bj a hasty 

retreat. The regimenl of Washington counted hut three hundred ; 
— the force of the French and Indians exceeded a thousand. 
Washington reluctantly fell hack to Fort Necessity, a hasty work 
on the meadows, at the western base of the mountains, whose 
name sufficientl) shows the feelings, with which the youthful com- 
mander found himself COmpi lied to occupy it. Here he entrenched 
himself and waited for reinforcements. Bui before they came up. 
the joint French and Indian army arrived in the neighborhood of 
die tint. \ sharp action took place, on the 3d of July. L754, 
which was kept up the whole day. till late in the evening. The 
American lone was considerabl) reduced: hut the French com- 
mander saw that he had to do with men. who were determined, if 
pushed to extremities, to ell their lives dear, lie proposed a 
capitulation: a parle\ was held to settle its terms. A captain in 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 549 

the Virginia regiment, and the only man in it who understood the 
French language, was sent by Colonel Washington to treat with 
the French commander. The articles of capitulation drawn up in 
French, and treacherously assented to by the Virginian captain, 
contained the assertion, that Jumonville, who, as was just observed, 
fell in the late skirmish, was assassinated. These articles were in- 
terpreted to Washington at midnight, under a drenching rain, 
among the wrecks of the battle, amidst heaps of the dead and 
dying, and after a severe engagement of ten hours. By a base 
mistranslation of the French word that signifies assassination, 
Washington was made to subscribe an article, in which the death 
of Jumonville was called by that revolting name. It was not until 
his return to Virginia, that this fraud was detected. On the 
following day, the Fourth of July, in virtue of this capitulation, 
Washington led out the remains of his gallant regiment, grieved 
but not dishonored. He conducted them with consummate skill, 
through the ill-restrained bands of Indians, who hovered around his 
march, and brought them safely to Fort Cumberland. Heaven 
had in reserve for him a recompense for the disasters of this mourn- 
ful fourth of July, when, on the return of that day, after a lapse of 
twenty-two years, it found him the Commander-in-Chief of the 
armies of independent and United America ! 

These incidents aroused the attention of France and England, 
who yet stood glaring at each other, in an attitude of defiance ; 
reluctant to plunge again into the horrors of a general war, but 
deeply conscious that peace could not be preserved. No formal 
declaration of war was made in Europe, but both governments pre- 
pared for vigorous action in America. Two veteran regiments 
were sent from Great Britain, destined to dislodge the French from 
Ohio. They were placed under the command of the brave, head- 
strong, self-sufficient, and unfortunate Braddock. By an extraor- 
dinary fatality of the British councils, — and as if to sow the seeds 
of division and weakness, at a moment when every nerve of 
strength required to be strained, — an ordinance for settling the rank 
of the army was promulgated, in virtue of which, all officers holding 
British commissions were to take rank of all holding provincial com- 
missions ; and provincial general and field officers were to lose 
their commands, when serving with those commissioned by the 



550 i \ BBETT'S onvriONS. 

crown. Colonel Washington, on the promulgation of this ill-con- 
ceived order, resigned bis Commission in disdain ; — but to show that 
nourtworthj motive had prompted that step, and happil) resolved 
lo persevere in the arduous school of dear-bought experience, he 
offered his services to General I Haddock, as an aid, — and they 
were gladly accepted. Washington fell dangerously sick on t he 
inarch toward the lidd of slaughter, beyond the mountains; — but 
consented to be left behind, at the positive instances of the surgeon, 
only on the solemn pledge of the general, that he should b< 
for before an action. 

Time would fail me to recount the horrors of the 9th of Jnl\ . 
L755. Washington, emaciated, reduced by fatigue and fever, 
had 'pined the army. He implored the ill-starred general to -end 
forward the Virginia Rangers to scour the forest in advance: he 
besough.1 him to conciliate the Indians. His counsels were un- 
heeded; the wretched commander moved forward to his fate. 
Washington was often heard to say, in the course of his life-time, 
that the most beautiful spectacle he had e\er witnessed) was that 
of the British troops on this < ventful morning. The whole detach- 
ment was *dad in uniform, and moved as in a review, in regular 
columns, to the sound of martial music. The sun gleamed upon 
their burnished arms, the placid Monongahela flowed upon their 
right, and the deep, native foresl overshadowed them with solemn 
grandeur, on their left. 41 It was a bright midsummer's day, and 
everj bosom swelled with the confident expectation of rictory. A 
few hours pa--, and the forest rings with the yell of the savage 
enemy : — the advance of the British army under Colonel Gage, 
afterwards the governoi of Massachusetts, is driven back on the 
main body; — the whole force, panic-struck, — confounded, — and 
disorganized, altera wild and murderous conflicl of three hour-. 
fill- a pre) to the invisible foe. They ran before the French and 

Indian- •• like -beep before the dogs." ( )f e'rJiU --i\ officers, -i\t\ - 

one were killed and wounded. The wretched general had four 

-hot under him. and received at la-l hi- mortal wound, 

probablj from an outraged provincial, in his own army. The 

\ liaRati ers were the only part of the force, that behaved with 

U riti I H i lo \ "i II. p. i''' 1 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 551 

firmness ; and the disordered retreat of the British veterans was 
actually covered by these American militia men. Washington 
was the guardian angel of the day. He was every where, in the 
hottest of the fight. " I expected every moment," said Dr Craik, 
his friend, " to see him fall." His voice was the only one, which 
commanded obedience. Two horses were killed under him, and 
four bullets passed through his garments. No common fortune 
preserved his life. Fifteen years after the battle, Washington made 
a journey to the great Kenhawa, accompanied by Dr Craik. 
While exploring the wilderness, a band of Indians approached 
them, headed by a venerable chief. He told them, by an inter- 
preter, the errand on which he came. " I come, said he, to behold 
my great father Washington. I have come a long way, to see 
him. 1 was with the French, in the battle of the Monongahela. 
I saw my great father on horseback, in the hottest of the battle. 
I fired my rifle at him many times, and bade my young men also 
fire their rifles at him. But the Great Spirit turned away the 
bullets ; — and I saw that my great father could not be killed in 
battle." This anecdote rests on the authority of Dr Craik, the 
comrade and friend of Washington, the physician who closed his 
eyes. Who needs doubt it ? Six balls took effect on his horses 
and in his garments. Who does not feel the substantial truth of 
the tradition ? — Who, that has a spark of patriotic or pious senti- 
ment in his bosom, but feels an inward assurance that a heavenly 
presence overshadowed that field of blood, and preserved the great 
instrument of future mercies ? — Yes, gallant and beloved youth, 
ride safely as fearlessly through that shower of death ! Thou art 
not destined to fall in the morning of life, in this distant wilderness. 
That wan and wasted countenance shall yet be lighted up with the 
sunshine of victory and peace ! — The days are coming and the 
years draw nigh, when thy heart, now bleeding for thy afflicted 
country, shall swell with joy, as thou leadest forth her triumphant 
hosts, from a war of independence ! 

From this period, the relation of Washington to his country was 
sealed. It is evident that his character, conduct, and preservation, 
— though he was scarcely twenty-three years of age, — had arrest- 
ed the public attention, and awakened thoughtful anticipations of 
his career. I confess, there is something which I am unable to 



552 i \ BRETT'S OB LTIONS. 

fathom, in the hold which be seems already to have gained over 
the minds and imaginations of men. Never did victorious consul 
return to republican Rome, loaded with the spoils of conquered 
provinces, with captive thousands at his chariot wheels, an objecl 
of greater confidence and respect, — than Washington, at the close 
ol two disastrous campaigns, from one of which he was able to 
save his regimenl only bj a painful capitulation, — in the other, 

hardy escaping with his lit',. :m , I the wrecks of his ;irm\ . Mr had 

formed to himself, on fields ofdefeal and disaster, a reputation for 
consummate bravery, conduct, and patriotism. A sermon was 
preached to the volunteers of Hanover county, in Virginia, by the 
Rev. Samuel Davies, afterwards president of Princeton college, in 
which he uses tins memorable language: — c Asa remarkable in- 
stance of patriotism, I may point out to the public that heroic 
youth, Colonel Washington, whom I cannot but hope Providence 

ha- hitherto preserved, in 50 signal a manner, for Some important 

-' i \ ice to hi- countrj .' 

The entire completion of this extraordinary prediction was, 
of course, reserved for a future day ; but from the moment of it- 
utterance, its fulfilment began. Tenor and havoc followed at the 
heels of Braddock's defeat. The frontier settlements were broken 
up, — the log cabins were burned, — their inmates massacred, or 
driven in dismaj aero--, the mountains. \ considerable force was 
raised in Virginia, and Washington was appointed its commander- 
in-chief. But the councils of England were weak and irresolute, 
and no efficient general head as yet controlled those of the colo- 
nies. The day-star of I'itt was near, hut had not yet ascended 
above the horizon. — Disaster followed disaster, on the frontiers >■! 
\ i I'd nia. and Washington, for two years anil a half, was placed in 

precisely the position which he was afterwards to fill, iii the revo- 
lutionary war. \ reluctant and undisciplined militia was to he 
kt pt embodied by personal influence, — without pay, without clothes, 
without ann-. Si ni to d( U't^l an extensive mountain frontier, with 
forces wholly inadequate to the object, — the -port of contradictory 
order- from a civil governor, in ex pi rienced in war. — defrauded bj 
contractors, — tormented with arrogant pretensions of subaltern offi- 
cers in the royal army. — weakened bj whole-ale desertions in the 
hour oi danger, — misrepresented l»\ jealous competitors, — traduced, 
— maligned, — the youthful commander-in-chii f was obliged to 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 553 

foresee every thing, — to create every thing, — to endure every thing, 
— to effect every thing, without encouragement, without means, 
without cooperation. His correspondence during the years 1756 and 
1757 is, with due allowances for the difference of the field of ope- 
rations, the precise counterpart of that of the revolutionary war, 
twenty years later. You see it all, — you see the whole man, — 
in a letter to Governor Dinwiddie, of the 2'2d April, 175(5: — 

' Your honor may see to what unhappy straits the inhabitants 
and myself are reduced. I am too little acquainted, sir, with pa- 
thetic language, to attempt a description of the people's distresses, 
though I have a generous soul, sensible of wrongs, and swelling 
for redress. But what can I do ? I see their situation, know their 
danger, and participate their sufferings, without having it in my 
power to give them farther relief than uncertain promises. In 
short, I see inevitable destruction, in so clear a light, that unless 
vigorous measures are taken by the assembly, and speedy assist- 
ance sent from below, the poor inhabitants that are now in forts 
must unavoidably fall, while the remainder are flying before a bar- 
barous foe. In fine, the melancholy situation of the people, — the 
little prospect of assistance, — the gross and scandalous abuse cast 
upon the officers in general, — which is reflecting on me in partic- 
ular for suffering misconduct of such extraordinary kinds, — and the 
distant prospect, if any, of gaining honor or reputation in the ser- 
vice, cause me to lament the hour that gave me a commission, and 
would induce me, at any other time than this of imminent danger. 
to resign without one hesitating moment, a command from which I 
never expect to reap either honor or benefit ; but on the contrary, 
have an almost absolute certainty of incurring displeasure below, 
while the murder of helpless families may be laid to my account 
here! The supplicating tears of the women, the moving petitions 
of the men, melt me into such deadly sorrow, that I solemnly de- 
clare, if I know my own mind, I could offer myself a willing sacri- 
fice to the butchering enemy, provided that would contribute to the 
people's ease !' 

And here I close the detail. You behold in this one extract 

your Washington, complete, mature, ready for the salvation of his 

country. The occasion that calls him out may come soon, or it 

may come late, or it. may come both soon and late : — \vhenev< r ii 

69 



55 1 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

comes, he is ready for the work. A misguided ministry may accel- 
erate, or measures of conciliation retard, the strmiide : but it- hero is 
prepared. His bow ofmighl is strung, and his quiver hangs from his 
shoulders, stored with three-bolted thunders. The summons to the 
mighty conBict may come the next \ ear, — the next day ; it will find 
the rose of youth on his cheek, but it will find him wise, cautious, 
prudent, and grave ; it maj come after the lapse of time, and find his 
noble countenance marked with the lines of manhood, but it will find 
him alert, vigorous, unexhausted. It may reach him the nexl daj . 
on the frontiers, in arms for the protection of the settlement : it may 
reach him at the meridian of life, in the retirement of Mount Vernon ; 
it may reach him as he draws near to the grave; but it will never 
take him by surprise. It may summon him to the first Congress at 
Philadelphia : it will i\nd him brief of speech, in matter weighty, 
pertinent, and full; in resolution firm as the perpetual hills, in per- 
sonal influence absolute. It may call him to the command of ar- 
mies ; the generous rashness of youth alone will be chastened by 
the responsibility of his -rent trust, but in all else he will exhibit 
unchanged that serene and godlike courage, with which he rode 
unharmed through the iron sleet of ISraddock's field. It may call 
him to take part in the convention, assembled to give a constitu- 
tion to the rescued and distracted country. The soldier has dis- 
appeared, the statesman, the patriot, is at the post of duty ; he sits 
down in the humblest seal of the civilian, till in the assembly of 
all that is wisesl in the land, he, by one accord is felt the presiding 
mind. It will call him to the highest trust of the new -formed gov- 
ernment : he will conciliate the affections of the country in the 
dubious trial of the constitution ; and he will organize, administer, 
and lay i low n the arduous duties of a chief magistracj unparalleled 
in it- character, without even the suspicion of swerving in a single 
instance from the path of rectitude. Lastly, the voice of a beloved 
country may call him for a third time, on the verge ol threi 
years and ti n, to the field. The often sacrificed desire liu- repose, 
— the number and variety of services alread) performed ; — his de- 
clining years might seem to exempt him. hut he will obey the sacred 
call of his countrj in his age, as he obeyed it in his youth, lie 
te bis fellow citizens the mprningj he w ill give tbem _the_e_yen- 
f his existence ; — he will exhaust the last hour of his being, 
and breathe his dying breath, in the service of his country. 



ADDRESS 

DELIVERED BEFORE THE LITERARY SOCIETIES OF AMHERST COL- 
LEGE, AUGUST 25, 1835. 



The place of our meeting, the season of the year, and the 
occasion which has called us together, seem to prescribe to us the 
general topics of our discourse. We are assembled within the pre- 
cincts of a place of education. It is the season of the year, at 
which the seminaries of learning throughout the country are dis- 
missing to the duties of life that class of their students, whose col- 
legiate course is run. The immediate call which has brought us 
together at this time, is the invitation of a portion of the members 
of the literary societies of this highly respectable and fast rising 
institution, who, agreeably to academical usage, on the eve of their 
departure from a spot endeared to them, by all the pleasant associ- 
ations of collegiate life, are desirous, by one more act of literary 
communion, to strengthen the bond of intellectual fellowship and 
alleviate the regrets of separation. In the entire uncertainty of all 
that is before us, for good or for evil, there is nothing so nearly 
certain, as that we, who are here assembled to-day, shall never, in 
the Providence of God, be all brought together again in this world. 
Such an event is scarcely more within the range of probability, than 
that the individual drops, which, at this moment, make up the 
rushing stream of yonder queen of the valley, mounting in vapor 
to the clouds, and scattered to the four winds, will, at some future 
period, be driven together and fall in rains upon the hills, and flow 
down and recompose the identical river that is now spreading 



.V>() I \ BRETT'S ORATIONS. 

abundance and beauty before our eyes. To say nothing of the 

dread si nous which comes io all when leasl expected, you will 

scarce step out of this sanctuary of your intellectual worship, be- 
fore you will find how widely the paths of life diverge, not more 
so in the Literal sense of the word, than in the estrangemenl which 
results from varietj of pursuit, opinion, party, and success. In- 
fluenced h\ the feelings which this reflection inspires, it is natural 
that we should pause; — that we should give our minds up to the 
meditations which belong to tin- place, to the occasion, and the 
daj : — thai we should inquire into the character of that general 
ss, in which you are now taking so important a step; — that 
we should put our thoughts in harmony with the objects that sur- 
round us, and thus seek from the hour as it flies, from the occasion, 
which once passed will never in all its accidents and qualifications 
return, to extract some abiding good impression, and to carry away 
some memorial, that will survive the moment. 

The multiplication of the means of education and the general 

diffusion of knowledge, at the presenl day, are topics of universal 

remark. There arc twelve collegiate institution- in New-England, 
whose commencement is observed during the months oi August 
and September, and which will send forth, the present year, on an 
average estimate, about four hundred graduates. 'There are more 
than lili\ oilier institutions of the same ueueral character, in other 
parts of the United Stale-. 'The greater portion of them are in 
the infancy of their existence and usefulness, bul some of them 
compare advantageously with our New-England institutions. Be- 
sides the colic-'-, there are the schools for theological, medical, 
and legal education, on the one hand : and on the other, the innu- 
merable institutions for preparatory or elementary instruction, Irom 

the infant schools, to which the fond and careful mother sends her 

darling lis per, not yet quite able to articulate, but with the laudable 
purpi ing him out of the way, up to the high schools and 

endowed academies, which furnish a competent education lor all 
the active duties of life. IJcsides these establishments for educa- 
tion of various character and name. — societies for die promotion ol 

useful knowledge, mechanics 3 institutes, lyceums, and voluntary 
course - of li ctures, abound in many parts of the countr) . and per- 
form a very important on thi great work ol 111- 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 557 

struction. Lastly, the press, by the cheap multiplication of books, 
and especially by the circulation of periodical works of every form 
and description, has furnished an important auxiliary to every other 
instrument of education, and turned the whole community, so to 
say, into one great monitorial school. There is probably not a 
newspaper of any character, published in the United States, which 
does not, in the course of the year, convey more useful information 
to its readers, than is to be found in the twenty -one folios of Alber- 
tus Magnus, — light as he was of the thirteenth century. I class 
all these agencies under the general name of the means of educa- 
tion, because they form one grand system, by which knowledge is 
imparted to the mass of the community, and the mind of the age, 
— with the most various success, according to circumstances, — is 
instructed, disciplined, and furnished with its materials for action 
and thought. 

These remarks are made in reference to this country ; but in 
some countries of Europe, all the means of education enumerated, 
with an exception perhaps in the number of newspapers, exist to as 
great an extent as in our own. Although there are portions of 
Europe where the starless midnight of the mind still covers society 
with a pall as dreary and impervious as in the middle ages, yet it 
may be safely said, upon the whole, that not only in America, but 
in the elder world, a wonderfully extensive diffusion of knowledge 
has taken place. In Great Britain, in France, in Germany, in 
Holland, in Sweden, in Denmark, the press is active, schools are 
numerous, higher institutions for education abound, associations for 
the diffusion of knowledge flourish, and literature and science, in 
almost every form, are daily rendered more cheap and accessible. 
There is, in fact, no country in Europe, from which the means of 
light are wholly shut out. There are universities in Austria and 
Russia, and newspapers at Madrid and Constantinople. 

It is the impulse of the liberal mind to rejoice in this manifest 
progress of improvement, and we are daily exchanging congratula- 
tions with each other, on the multiplication, throughout the world, 
of the means of education. There are not wanting, however, those 
who find a dark side even to such an object as this. We ought 
not, therefore, either to leave a matter so important exposed to 
vague prejudicial surmises, on the one hand; nor, on the other, 



558 l -\ BRETT'S ORATIONS. 

should we rest merely in the impulses of liberal feeling and unre- 
flecting enthusiasm. We should fortify ourselves, in a case of such 
magnitude, in an enlightened conviction. We should seek to re- 
duce to an exact analysis the Lit at doctrine, that the extension of 
the means of education and the general diffusion of knowledge are 
beneficial to society. It is the object of the present address to 
touch briefly, — and in the somewhat desultory manner required on 
such an occasion, — on some of the prominent points involved in 
this great subject ; and to endeavor to show that the diffusion of 
knowledge, of which we have spoken, is favorable to liberty, to 
science, and virtue ; — to social, intellectual, and spiritual improve- 
ment ; the onl\ three things which deserve a name below. 

I. Although liberty, strictly speaking, is only one of the objects 
for which men have united themselves in civil societies, it is so in- 
timately connected with all the others, and every thing else is so 
sunk in value when liberty is taken away, that its preservation may 
be considered, humanly speaking, the great object of life in civili- 
zed communities. It is so essential to the prosperous existence of 
nations, that even where the theory of the government, — as in ma- 
ns absolute monarchies, — seems to subvert its very principle, by 
making it depend on the will of the ruler, yet usage, prescription, 
and a kind of beneficent instinct of the body politic, secure to the 
people some portion of practical liberty. Where political interests 
and passions do not interfere, (which they rarely do in respect to 
the private rights of the mass of the community), the subjects of 
tin absolute monarchies of the north and east of Europe enjoj al- 
most as large a share of liberty, as under some of what are called 
the constitutional governments, in their neighborhood. Where this 
is not the case, — where a despotic theorj of the government is 
(anied out into a de-potic administration, — and life, rights, and 
property are habitually sacrificed to the caprice and pas-ion- ol 

men in power, as in all the despotisms which stretch across Asia, 
from the Euxine to the Pacific, there the population is kept per- 
manentl} degenerate, barbarous, and wretched. 

Whenever we -peak of liberty, in this connexion, we compre- 
hend under it.h gal security for life, personal freedom, and property. 
\- th. quail) dear to all men ; as all feel, with equal keen- 

ikI bitterness, the pang which extinguishes existence the 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 559 

chain which binds the body, the coercion which makes one toil for 
another's benefit, it follows, as a necessary consequence, that all 
governments which are hostile to liberty are founded on force ; that 
all despotisms are, what some by emphasis are occasionally called, 
military despotisms. The degree of force required to hold a pop- 
ulation in subjection, other things being equal, is in direct ratio to 
its intelligence and skill ; its acquaintance with the arts of life ; its 
sense of the worth of existence ; in fine, to its spirit and character. 
There is a point, indeed, beyond which this rule fails, and at which 
even the most thoroughly organized military despotism cannot be 
extended over the least intellectual race of subjects, serfs or slaves. 
History presents us with the record of numerous servile wars and 
peasants' wars, from the days of Spartacus to those of Tupac- Am- 
aru and Pugatschef ; in which, at the first outbreak, all the advan- 
tages of authority, arms, concert, discipline, skill, have availed the 
oppressor nothing against humanity's last refuge, the counsel of 
madness, and the resources of despair. 

There are two ways in which liberty is promoted by the general 
diffusion of knowledge. The first is by disabusing the minds of 
men of the theoretical frauds, by which arbitrary governments are 
upheld. It is a remark almost, if not quite, without exception, that 
all governments unfriendly to well-regulated liberty, are founded 
on the basis of some religious imposture ; the arm of military vio- 
lence is clothed with the enervating terrors of superstition. The 
Oriental nations, as far back as our accounts run, worshipped their 
despots as divinities, and taught this monstrous adulation to the suc- 
cessors of Alexander. The Roman emperors, from the time of 
Julius Caesar, were deified ; and the thrones of modern European 
absolutism rest on a basis a little more refined, but not more rational. 
The divine right of Henry VIII, or of Charles V, was no better, 
in the eye of an intelligent Christian, than that of their contempo- 
rary, Solyman the Magnificent. 

Superstitions like these, resting, like all other superstitions, on 
ignorance, vanish with the diffusion of knowledge, like the morn- 
ing mists on yonder river before the rising sun ; and governments 
are brought down to their only safe and just basis, — the welfare and 
will of the governed. The entire cause of modern political reform 
has started in the establishment of this principle, and no example 



560 CT'S OB ITIONS. 

is more conspicuous than that which, for the magnitude of the rei 
olution and the immensity of its consequences is called 'Vh> ll<- 
formation ; and which, on accounl of the temporal usurpations of 
the Church of Rome, the intrusion of its power into the affairs of 

11 countries, and the right claimed by the Pope to command 
the obedience of subjecl and sovereign, — was no1 Less a political 
than a religious revolution. Throughoul this greal work, the course 
and conduct of Luther present a mosl illustrious example of the 
efficacj of a diffusion of knowledge, — of an appeal to the popular 
mind. — in breaking the yoke of the oppressor, and establishing a 
rational freedom. \N hen he commenced the greaJ enterprise, be 
-loud alone. The governments acknowledged the supremacy of 
the Roman pontiff. The teachers of the universities and schools 
were, for the mosl part, regular priests, bound not only by the 
common tie of spiritual allegiance, but by the rules of the monastic 
orders to which the^ belonged. The books of authority were ex- 
clusively those of the schoolmen, implicitly devoted to the church, 
filled with fantastical abstractions, with a meagre and unprofitable 
logic, and written in a dead language, in this state of tilings, says 
Lord Bacon, •.Martin Luther, conducted, no doubt, by a higher 
Pro> idence, In it in a discourse of reason, finding what a province 
he had undertaken againsl the bishop of Koine and die degenerate 
traditions of the church, and finding his own solitude, being no 
ways aided by the opinions of his own time, was enforced to awake 
all antiquity, and to call former times to his succor, to make a part) 
against the present time. So that the ancient authors, both in 
divinity and humanity, which had long time slept in libraries, be- 
gan generally to he read and revolved. This, b) consequence, 
did draw on a necessity ofa more exquisite travel in the languages 
original, wherein those authors did write, for a better understanding 
of those author-, and the better advantages of pressing and apply- 

their words. And thereof grew again a delighl in their man- 
ner ami Style of phrase, and an admiration of that kind of writing; 
which was much furthered and precipitated l>\ the enmity and op- 
position dial the propounders of those primitive, but seeming new. 
opinions had against the schoolmen, who ware generall) of the 
contrarj part, and whose writings wire altogether in a different 
style and form, taking liberty to coin and frame new term- of an 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 561 

to express their own sense, and to avoid circuit of speech, without 
regard to the pureness, pleasantness, and, as I may call it, law- 
fulness of the phrase or word. And again, because the great la- 
bor then was with the people, of whom the Pharisees were wont 
to say, execrabilis ista turba, qua non novit legem ; for the win- 
ning and persuading them, there grew, of necessity, in chief price 
and request, eloquence and variety of discourse, as the fittest and 
forciblest access into the capacity of the vulgar sort.'* 

With the greatest reverence for the authority of Lord Bacon, I 
would say, that he seems to me to have somewhat mistaken the 
relative importance of the great instruments of the Reformation. 
In the solemn loneliness, in which Luther found himself, he called 
around him not so much the masters of the Greek and Latin wis- 
dom, through the study of the ancient languages, as he did the mass 
of his own countrymen, by his translation of the Bible. It would 
have been a matter of tardy impression and remote efficacy, had 
he done no more than awake from the dusty alcoves of the libra- 
ries the venerable shades of the classic teachers. He roused up a 
population of living sentient men, his countrymen, his brethren. 
He might have written and preached in Latin to his dying day, 
and the elegant Italian scholars, champions of the church, would 
have answered him in Latin better than his own ; — and with the 
mass of the people, the whole affair would have been a contest 
between angry and loquacious priests. ' Awake all antiquity from 
the sleep of the libraries?' He awoke all Germany and half 
Europe from the scholastic sleep of an ignorance worse than death. 
He took into his hands not the oaten pipe of the classic muse ; he 
moved to his great work, not 

to the Dorian mood 

Of flutes and soft recorders : — 

He grasped the iron trumpet of his mother tongue, — the good old 
Saxon from which our own is descended, the language of noble 
thought and high resolve, — and blew a blast that shook the na- 
tions from Rome to the Orkneys. Sovereign, citizen, and peasant, 
started at the sound ; and, in a few short years, the poor monk, 

* Lord Bacon's Works, Vol. I, p. 14, quarto ed. 
70 



562 El BRETT'S ORATIONS. 

who had begged his bread for a pious canticle, in the streets of 
Eisenach,* — no longer friendless, no longer solitary, — was sustain- 
ed by victorious armies, countenanced by princes, and. whal is a 
thousand tune- more precious than the brightest crown in Christen- 
dom, revered as a sage, a benefactor, and a spiritual parent, al the 
firesides of millions of his humble and grateful countrymen. 

Nor do we less plainly see in this, as in numerous other exam- 
ples in the modern history of liberty, the more general operation of 
the influences b) which the diffusion of knowledge promotes ration- 
al freedom. Simply to overturn the theoretical sophisms upon 
which any particular form of despotism maj rest, is but to achieve 
a temporary work. While the mass of the people remain igno- 
rant, — to undermine the system of oppression, political or ecclesi- 
astical, under which, at an) time the) may labor, is bul to stagger 
darkling from one tyrannj to another. It is for this reason, — a 
truth too sadh exemplified in the history of the world for the last 
titty years, — that countries in which themajority of the people have 
grown up without knowledge, stung to madn< -- b) intolerable op- 
pression, ma) make a series of plunges, through scenes of successn e 
revolution and anarchy, and come out at last drenched in blood, 
and loaded w 1 1 1 1 chain-. 

We must therefore trace the cause of political slavery beyond 
the force which is the immediate instrument; — beyond the super- 
stition which i- In puissanl ally; — beyond the habit and usage, the 
second nature of governments as of men. — and we shall find it in 
that fatal inequality winch results from hereditary ignorance. This 
i- the ultimate, the broad, the -olid foundation of despotism. A 
feu are wise, skilful, learned, wealth) ; millions are uninformed, 
and consequently unconscious of their rights. For a few arc con- 
centrated the delights, the honors, ami the excitements of life: — 
for all tin' rest remains a heritage ol unenlightened subjection and 
unrew aided toil. 

Such i> the division of the human race in all the Oriental des- 
potisms, at the present day. Such it was iii all Europe, in the 
middli Such, in some parts of Europe, it -till is: such it 

natural!) must he ever) where, under institutions which keep the 

l ithi i iWerke, Th K, 524 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 563 

mass of the people ignorant. A nation is numerically reckoned at 
its millions of souls. But they are not souls ; the greater part are 
but bodies. God has given them souls, but man has done all but 
annihilate the immortal principle : — its life-spring, its vigor, its con- 
scious power, are broken down, and the people lie buried in subjec- 
tion, till, through the medium of the understanding, a new creation 
takes place. The physical creation began with light ; the intellec- 
tual and moral creation begins with light also. Chosen servants of 
Providence are raised up to speak the word ; power is given to po- 
litical or religious reformers to pronounce the decree ; it spreads 
like the elemental beam, by the thousand channels of intelligence, 
from mind to mind, and a new race is created. Let there be 
light ; let those rational intellects begin to think. Let them but 
look in upon themselves and see that they are men, and look upon 
their oppressors and see if they are more. Let them look round 
upon nature: — 'it is my Father's domain; shall not my patient la- 
bor be rewarded with its share? ' Let them look up to the heav- 
ens ; — ' has He that upholds their glorious orbs, and who has given 
me the capacity to trace and comprehend their motions, designed me 
to grovel, without redemption, in the dust beneath my feet, and 
exhaust my life for a fellow man no better than myself? ' 

These are the truths, which in all ages shoot through the under- 
standings to the hearts of men : they are what our revolutionary 
fathers called " first principles ;" and they prepared the way for 
the revolution. All that was good in the French revolution was 
built upon them. They are the corner-stone of modern English 
liberty ; they emancipated the Netherlands and the Swiss Cantons ; 
and they gave to republican Greece and Rome that all but miracu- 
lous influence in human affairs, — which succeeding ages of civil 
discord, of abuse, and degeneracy have not yet been able to coun- 
tervail. They redress the inequalities of society. When, penetra- 
ted with these great conceptions, the people assert their native 
worth and inherent rights, it is wonderful to behold how the petty 
badges of social inequality, the emblems of rank and of wealth, are 
contemned. Cincinnatus, who saved Rome from the Sabines, was 
found ploughing his own land, a farm of four acres, when created 
dictator; and Epaminondas, who rescued his country from the dom- 
ination of Sparta, and was implored by the emissaries of the kino- 



.")() 1 i.\ BRETT'S ORATIONS. 

of Persia to do their master the honor to take his bribes, possessi d 
do other property, when he fell gloriously at Maritinaea, than the 
humble utensils for cooking his daily food. A single bold word, 
heroic exploit, or generous sacrifice, at the fortunate crisis, kindles 
the latent faculties of a whole population, turns them from beasts <>! 
burden into men ; excites t<> intense action and sympathetic coun- 
sel millions of awakened mind . and leads them forth to the contest. 
When such a development of mental energj hasfairlj taken place, 
the battle is foughl and won. It may be long and deadly, it may 
be brief and bloodless. Freedom may come quicklj in robes ol 
peace, or after ages of conflict and war; but come it will, and 
abide it will, so long as the principles by which il was acquired 

are held sacred. 

Nor lei u> forget, thai the dangers to which liberty is exposed 
are nol all on the side of arbitrary power. That popular intelli- 
gence, l>\ which the acquisition of rational freedom is to be made, 
i- still more necessary to protect it againsl anarchy. Here i- the 
•rreat test of a people, who derserve th< ir In i dom. Under a pa- 
rental despotism, the order of the state is preserved, and life and 
property are protected. h_\ the -iron- arm of the government. 
\ measure of liberty, — that is, safety from irregular violence, — is 
secured bj the constant presence of that militar) power, which is 
the great engine of subjection. But beneath a free government, 
there is nothing but the intelligence of die people to k< ep the peo- 
ple'- peace. Order must be preserved, not by a military police 
or regiments of horse-guards ; but by the spontaneous concert of 
a well-informed population, resolved that the rights, which have 
been rescued from despotism, shall not he subverted h\ anarchy. 
\- the disorder ol* a delicate 53 stem and the degeneracy of a noble 

nature are spectacles more -r'h VOUS than the corruption of meaner 
things, -oil' we permit the principle of our government to he sub- 
verted, havoc, terror and destruction, beyond the measure of ordi- 
nary political catastrophes will he our lot. This is a subject ofin- 
tense interest to the people of the United Stales at the presenl time. 
To no people ~\\u-r tin 1 world began, was such an amount of bless- 
ings and privili ;es ever given in trust. .No people w 
eminenth made the guardians of their own indifthis 

experiment ol' rational liberty should here he pi rmitted to fail, I 



KVERETT'S ORATIONS. 565 

know not where or when among the sons of Adam, it will ever be 
resumed. 

II. But it is more than time to proceed to the second point, 
which I proposed briefly to illustrate, — the favorable influence of 
the extension of the means of education and the diffusion of knowl- 
edge, on the progress of sound science. It is a pretty common 
suggestion, that while the more abundant means of popular educa- - 
tion, existing at the present day, may have occasioned the diffusion 
of a considerable amount of superficial knowledge, the effect has 
been unfavorable to the growth of profound science. I am in- 
clined to think this view of the subject entirely erroneous ; — an 
inference by no means warranted by the premises from which it is 
drawn. It is no doubt true, that, in consequence of the increased 
facilities for education, the number of students of all descriptions, 
both readers and writers, is almost indefinitely multiplied, and with 
this increase in the entire number of persons who have enjoyed, in 
a greater or less degree, advantages for improving their minds, the 
number of half-taught and superficial pretenders has become pro- 
portionably greater. Education, which, at some periods of the 
world, has been a very rare accomplishment of a highly gifted and 
fortunate few ; at other times, an attainment attended with consid- 
erable difficulty, and almost confined to professed scholars, — has 
become, in this country at least, one of the public birthrights of 
freemen, and, like every other birthright, is subject to be abused. 
In this state of things, those, who habitually look at the dark side of 
affairs, — often witnessing the arrogant displays of superficial learn- 
ing, — books of great pretension and little value, multiplied and 
circulated, by all the arts and machinery of an enterprising and 
prosperous age, and in all things much forwardness and show, 
often unaccompanied by worth and substance, — are apt to infer a 
decline of sound learning, and look back, with a sigh, to what they 
imagine to have been the more solid erudition of former days. 
But I deem this opinion without real foundation, in truth. 

It is an age, I grant, of cheap fame. A sort of literary ma- 
chinery exists, of which the patent paper-mill, the power-press, the 
newspapers, magazines and reviews ; the reading clubs and circulat- 
ing libraries, are some of the principal springs and levers, by means 
of which almost any thing, in the shape of a book, is thrown into a 
sort of notoriety, miscalled reputation. The weakest distillation 



•"><»<> EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

of soil sentiment from the poet's corner flows round a larger circle 
of admirers, than Paradise Lost, when first ushered to the world; 
ami the most narcotic infliction of the quarterly critical press, (ni- 
sit invidia verbo), no doubt Car excels the Novum Organum'w 
the number oi its contemporary readers. I >ui nothing is to be 
inferred from this state of things, in disparagement of the learning 
and scholarship of the age. Ml thai it proves is, that, with a vasl 
diffusion of useful knowledge,with an astonishing multiplication of 
the means of education, and. as I (irmly believe, with a prodigious 
growth of true science, there has sprung up, by natural association, 
a hosl of triflers and pretenders, like a growth of rank weeds, with 
a rich crop, on a fertile soil. 

But there were surelj always pretenders in science and litera- 
ture, in ever) age of the world ; nor must we suppose, becau e 
their works and their names have perished, that the) existed in a 
smaller proportion formerly than now. Solomon intimates a com- 
plaint of the number of books in his da) . which he probabl) would 
not have done, if they had been all good books. 'The sophists in 
Greece were sworn pretenders and dealers in words. — the mosl 
cwnpletel) organized body of learned quacks that ever existed. 
Bavius and Maevius were certainl) not the onl) worthless poets in 
Rome; and from the age of the grammarians and critics of the 
Alexandrian school, through that of the monkish chronicler 
the schoolmen of the middle ages, and the mystics of the sixteenth 
and seventeenth centuries, the kingdom of learned dulness and 
empty profession has been kept up, under an unbroken succession 
of leaden or brazen potentates. If the subjects at the present day 
seem more numerous than formerl) . it is onl) in proportion to the in- 
crease in the entire numbers of the reading and writing world ; and 
because the sagacious hand of time brushes awa) the false preten- 
sions ol former days, leaving real talent and sound learning the 
more conspicuous foi standing alone. 

But, as in elder days, notwithstanding this unbroken swa) "I 
false lore and \ain philosophy, the line of the trul) wise and soundly 
h arned was also preserved entire ; as the lights of the world have 
in all formei ag< ucce sivel) risen, illuminating the d< ep darki 
and outshining the delusive met it the present day, I am 

lirmly convinced that there is more patient learning, true philosophy, 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 567 

fruitful science, and various knowledge, than at any former time. 
By the side of the hosts of superficial, arrogant, and often unprin- 
cipled pretenders, in every department, there is a multitude in- 
numerable of the devoted lovers of truth, whom no labor can ex- 
haust, no obstacles can discourage, no height of attainment dazzle ; 
and who, in every branch of knowledge, sacred and profane, moral, 
physical, exact, and critical, have carried and are carrying the 
glorious banner of true science, into regions of investigation wholly 
unexplored in elder times. Let me not be mistaken. I mean not 
arrogantly to detract from the fame of the few great masters of the 
mind, — the gifted few, who, from age to age, after long centuries 
have intervened, have appeared ; and have risen, as all are ready 
to allow, above all rivalry. Aftertime alone can pronounce whether 
this age has produced minds worthy to be classed in their select 
circle. But this aside, — I cannot comprehend the philosophy by 
which we assume as probable, nor do I see the state of facts, by 
which we must admit as actually existing, an intellectual degene- 
racy at the present day, either in Europe or in this country. I see 
not why the multiplication of popular guides to partial attainments, 
— why the facilities, that abound for the acquisition of superficial 
scholarship, should, in the natural operation of things, either dimin- 
ish the number of powerful and original minds, or satisfy their ardent 
thirst for acquisition, by a limited progress. There is no doubt 
that many of these improvements in the methods of learning, — many 
of the aids to the acquisition of knowledge, which are the product 
of the present time, are, in their very nature, calculated to help the 
early studies even of minds of the highest order. It is a familiar 
anecdote of James Otis, that, when he first obtained a copy of 
Blackstone's Commentaries, he observed with emphasis, that if he 
had possessed that book when commencing his studies of the law, 
it would have saved him seven years' labor. Would those seven 
years have borne no fruit to a mind like that of James Otis? 
Though the use of elementary treatises of this kind may have the 
effect to make many superficial jurists, who would otherwise have 
been no jurists at all, 1 deem it mere popular prejudice to suppose, 
that the march of original genius to the heights of learning has been 
impeded, by the possession of these modern facilities to aid its pro- 
gress. To maintain this, seems to be little else than to condemn as 



• '■ i \ i lii i i •-. OB k i i«'\ 

worthless the wisdom of the ages, which hove gone before us. It 
is surel) absurd i>> suppose that we can do no more with (he assist- 
ance ol our predecessors, than without ii ; iluii the teachinj i of one 
generation, instead of enlightening, confound and stupif) thai which 
succeeds; ami thai 'when we stand on the shoulders of our an- 
cestors, we cannot e< o fat .> i from the ground.' On the con 
trary, il is unquestionably one of the happiest laws »>! intellectual 
progress, thai the judicious labors, the profound reasonings, the 
sublime discoveries, the generous sentiments ol greal intellect . 
r.i|>ull\ work their wa) into the common channel of public opinion, 
i mi I access to the general mind, raise the universal standard of attain- 
ment, correct popular errors, promote arts ol dail) application, and 
come home at las) to the fireside, in the shape «>i increased intelli- 
gence, skill, com fori and virtue; which, in their turn, l»\ an in- 
stantaneous reaction, multipl) the numbers and facilitate the efforts 
ol those who engage in the farther investigation and discover) "I 
truth. In 1 1 1 i -> w a\ . a constanl circulation, like that of the life- 
blood, takes place in the intellectual world. Truth travels down 
tu mm the heights of philosophy to the humblesl walks of life, and up 
from the simplest perceptions ol an awakened intellect in the du 
coveries, whioh almost change the face of the world. At ever) 
ol its progress it is genial, luminous, creative. When firsl 
struck out !>\ some distinguished and fortunate genius, it ma) ad- 

itself onl) ii> a iw minds of kindred power. It exists dun 
onl) in the highest forms of science ; it corrects former systems, 
and authorizes nev* generalizations. Discussion, controversy be- 
gins; more truth is elicited, more errors exploded, more doubts 
cleared up, more phenomena drawn into the circle, unexpected 
connexions of kindred sciences are traced, and in each step of the 
progn , the number rapidl) grows of those who arc prepared to 
comprehend and carr) on some branches of the investigation, — till, in 
tin lapse of time, ever) ordcrof intellect has been Kindled, from 
that of the sublime di coven rto the practical machinist ; and ever) 

tmenl of knowledge been enlarged, from the most abstruse 
and transcendental theory to the daily arts of life. 

I presume it would not be difficult to deduce, from the discover) 
and demonstration of the law ol gravity, attainments in useful 
knowledge, which come home ever) da) u> the business and 



I. VI.im, : i OH 'i 10 ''''' 

hi, Dm-. o\ men ; enlightening the rnai *>\ the community vbo 
have received a common education on poinl concerning which 
the greatest philosophers of former inn'- wen al fault. Bold ;'■ 
the remarl ound there i not a young man who will to-morrow 
receive hi degree on thi tagi vho could not correct I X)t*d Bacon 
in many ■> grave poinl of natural science. Hi lordship rjui 
the rotation of the earth on n a: i after it had been affirmed liy 
Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo. II' siati positively thai he 
judge the worl '<! making {£old po ibl< " and even goei so f ; " 
after condemning th< procedure ol tin alchemi I to propound 
In (, ■:. ii. r ' i r j : 1 1 1 , he sayi , il ; is nol impossible, and I have heard 
ii verified thai upon cutting do vn ol an old timbi t tree, th< stub 
hath put out somctimci a tree ol another kind as thai beech hath 
put forth birch which if it be tru< the immortal chancelloi 
discreeth add 'the cau i may hi for thai the old i"t> is too 
ol juici to pul forth the fonnei tree and therefore putteth 
forth a tree of ■> smaller kind, thai needeth lesi nourishment.' \ 
SureK no man can doubt thai the cau c ol trui hai been 

promoted b) such a difTu ion of 1 no vl< dge, ai ha eradicated even 
from the common mind such enormoui erroi a these from which, 
notwith tandin^ theii enormity th< ^reatesl minds of other times 
could nol emancipate themselves. Ii i extremely difficult even 
for ili«- bold( i intellect to work them < lv< fn e <>( all those popular 
error , which form a part a ii vcr< ol the intellectual atmo phere, 
in which they have pas ed theii livi . Copernicui ■■■< <>n< ol the 
boldesl tbeori I thai evet lived, hut wa so enslaved by the exisl 
ni'i popular crrot a even bile proposin; I own simple and 
magnificently beautiful theory of the heaven , to retain some ol the 
mosl absurd and complicated conlrivanc< ol the Ptolemaic 
■ chemi iou and oi iginal of 

philosophers, and the lawi which b< iam< n I en declared, 

' 'II,' tvorUl hath been much abated by the opinion ',1 making gold. The 
tvorl i 1 I bJe, but the mean* hitherto propounded to effect it are 

in Mi'- practice full of error and impontun and in the theory l"ll of unwound im- 
agination* Lord Bacon Worli Vol I, p 204, 
t Lord Bo< on W orki , Vol I |> 241. 
f > - -•<■' WjouhI ',1 the Astronomical h co eru ol Kepler, chap III 
and VIM. 

71 



570 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

on respectable authority, 'the foundations of the whole theory of 
Newton; 5 bul he believed thatthe planets were monstrous animals, 
swimming in the ethereal fluid, and speaks of storms and tempests 
as the pulmonary heavings of the great Leviathan, the earth, 
breathing out hurricanes from its secret spiracles, in the valleys and 
among the hills. It may raise our admiration of this extraordinary 
man. that with notions 30 confused and irrational, he should, hv a 
life of indefatigable research, discover some of the sublimest laws 
of nature ; hut no one can so superstitiously reverence the past. — 

no one so h!indl\ unden alue the utility of the diffusion of 

knowledge, — as not to feel that these absurdities musl have hung 
like a millstone aboul the necks of the strongesl minds of former 
ages, and dragged them, in tin- midst of their boldest flights, to the 
dust. When I behold mind- like these, fitted to range, with the 
boldest step, in the path- of investigation, hound down hv subjec- 
tion to gross prevailing errors ; hut at length, by a happj effort of 
native sense or successful study. grasping at the discovery of si me 
noble truth, it brings to my mind Milton's somewhat fantastical 
description of the creation of the animals, in which the greal beasts 
of the forest, not wholly formed, are striving to he released from 
then- native earth, 

dow half appeared 
The tawny lion, struggling in gel Tree 
lli- hinder parts, then springs, a- burst from bonds, 
And rampant shakes his brinded main'. 

In short, when we consider the laws of the human mind, and 
the path by which the understanding marches to the discovery of 

truth, we musl see that ii is the neces-arv consequence of tin 

era! diffusion of knowledge, that it should promote the progress of 
science. Since the time of Lord Bacon, it has been more and 
more generally admitted, that the only path to true knowledge is 
the stud] and observation of nature, either in the phenomena of the 
external creation, or in the powers and operations of the human 
mind. This doe- not exclude the judicious use of books which re- 
cord the observations and the discoveries of others, and are of inesti- 
mable value in guiding the mind in its own independent researches. 
They are. in tact, not it- oecessarj . hut it- most usual instruments ; 

and a- the hook of nature i- never SO well pern-, d. as with the a-- 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 571 

sistance of the learned and prudent, who have studied it before us, 
so the true and profitable use of books is to furnish materials, on 
which other minds can act, and to facilitate their observation of 
nature. 

I know not where I could find a better illustration of their value 
and of their peculiar aptitude to further the progress of knowledge, 
than in the admirable report on the geology of Massachusetts, 
which has recently emanated from this place.* Under the en- 
lightened patronage of the commonwealth, a member of the facul- 
ty of this institution has set before the citizens of the State such a 
survey of its territory, — such an inventory of its natural wealth, — 
such a catalogue of its productions in the animal, the vegetable, 
and, still more, in the mineral world, as cannot be contemplated 
without gratification and pride. By one noble effort of learned 
industry and vigorous intellectual labor, the whole science of geol- 
ogy, — one of the great mental creations of modern times, — has been 
brought home, and applied to the illustration of our native State. 
There is not a citizen who has learned to read, in the humblest 
village of Massachusetts, from the hills of Berkshire to the sands 
of Nantucket, who has not now placed within his reach, the means 
of beholding, with a well-informed eye, either in his immediate 
neighborhood, or in any part of the State to which he may turn 
his attention, the hills and the vales, the rocks and the rivers, the 
soil and the quarries that lie beneath it. Who can doubt, that out 
of the hundreds, — the thousands, — of liberal minds, in every part 
of the commonwealth, which must thus be awakened to the intel- 
ligent observation of nature, thus helped over the elementary diffi- 
culties of the science, not a few will be effectually put upon the 
track of independent inquiries, and original attainments in science ! 

We are confirmed in the conclusion that the popular diffusion of 
knowledge is favorable to the growth of science, by the reflection, 
that, vast as the domain of learning is, and extraordinary as is the 
progress which has been made in almost every branch, it may be 
assumed ascertain, — I will not say that we are in its infancy, but as 
truth is as various as nature, and as boundless as creation, — that the 
discoveries already made, wonderful as they are, bear but a small 

* Report on the geology, mineralogy, botany, and zoology of Massachusetts, by 
Professor Hitchcock. 



l.\ BRETT'S <>R kTIONS. 



proportion to tbose that will hereafter be effected. In the yet un- 
explored wonders and yet unascertained laws of the heavens, — in 
the affinities of the natural properties of bodies, — in magnetism, 
galvanism, and electricity. — in lighl and heat. — in the combination 
and application of the mechanical powers, — the use of steam. — 
the analysis of mineral products, of liquid and aeriform fluids, — in 
the application of the arts and sciences to improvements in hus- 
bandly . to manufactures, lo na\ igation, to letters, and to education ; 
— in the greal departmenl of the philosophy of the mind, and the 
realm of morals ; — and. in short, to everj tiling that belongs to the 
improvement of man, there is yel a field of investigation broad 
enough to satisf) the mosl eagi r thirsl for knowledge, and diversi- 
fi< d enough to suit ever} varietj of taste, order of intellect, or de- 
gree of qualification. For the peaceful victories of the mind, that 
unknown and unconquered world, for which Alexander wept, is 
for ever near at hand : hidden, indeed, as yet. behind the veil with 
which nature shrouds her undiscovered mysteries, but stretching all 
along the confines of the domain of knowledge, sometimes nearest 
when least suspected. The foot has not yet pressed, nor the eye 
beheld it; bul the mind, in its deepest musings, in its widest ex- 
cursions, will sometimes catch a glimpse of the hidden realm, — a 
gleam of light from the Hesperian bland, — afresh and fragrant 
breeze from off the undiscovered land. 

Saba in odors from the spicy >liore, 

which happier voyagers in aftertimes, shall approach, explore, and 
inhabit. Who has not felt, when, with his very soul concentred 
in his eyes, while the world around him is wrapped in sleep, he 
gazes into the holy depths of the midnight heavens, or wanders in 

mplation among the worlds and systems that .-weep through 
the immensity of -pace. — who has no1 felt as if their mysterj 
musl yen more full} yield to the ardent, unwearied, imploring re- 
search of patient science ? Who does not, in those choice and 

ed moments, in which the world :^\^ its interests are forgotten, 
and the spirit retires into the inmosl sanctuary of its own medita- 
tions, and there, unconscious of evi rv thing bul itself and the infi- 
nite P of w hich it i the < arthl) t\ pe, and kindlin 
flame of thoughl on the altar of praj er, — w ho do< a not fe< I, in mo- 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 573 

ments like these, as if it must at last be given to man, to fathom 
the great secret of his own being ; to solve the mighty problem 

Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate ! 

When I think in what slight elements the great discoveries, that 
have changed the condition of the world, have oftentimes origina- 
ted ; on the entire revolution in political and social affairs, which 
has resulted from the use of the magnetic needle ; on the world of 
wonders, teeming with the most important scientific discoveries, 
which has been opened by the telescope ; on the all-controlling influ- 
ence of so simple an invention as that of movable metallic types ; 
on the effects of the invention of gunpowder, no doubt the casual 
result of some idle experiment in alchemy ; on the consequences 
that have resulted, and are likely to result from the application of 
the vapor of boiling water to the manufacturing arts, to navigation, 
and transportation by land ; on the results of a single sublime con- 
ception in the mind of Newton, on which he erected, as on a foun- 
dation, the glorious temple of the system of the heavens ; — in fine, 
when I consider how, from the great master-principle of the phi- 
losophy of Bacon, — the induction of truth from the observation of 
fact, — has flowed, as from a living fountain, the fresh and still swell- 
ing stream of modern science, I am almost oppressed with the idea 
of the probable connexion of the truths already known, with great 
principles which remain undiscovered ; — of the proximity in which 
we may unconsciously stand, to the most astonishing though yet 
unrevealed mysteries of the material and intellectual world. 

If after thus considering the seemingly obvious sources from 
which the most important discoveries and improvements have sprung, 
we inquire into the extent of the field, in which farther discoveries 
are to be made, which is no other and no less than the entire natu- 
ral and spiritual creation of God, — a grand and lovely system, even 
as we imperfectly apprehend it ; but no doubt most grand, lovely, 
and harmonious, beyond all that we now conceive or imagine ; — 
when we reflect that the most insulated, seemingly disconnected, 
and even contradictory parts of the system are, no doubt, bound 
together as portions of one stupendous whole ; — and that those, 
which are at present the least explicable, and which most complete- 
ly defy the penetration hitherto bestowed upon them, are as intel- 



.")7 I l.\ BRETT'S OB IT10NS. 

ligible, in reality, as that which seems most plain and clear : that 
as ever] atom in the universe attracts every other atom, and is at- 
tracted by it, so every truth stands in harmonious connexion with 
everj other truth : — we are brought directly to the conclusion, that 
every portion of knowledge now possessed, every observed fact, 
everj demonstrated principle, is a clew, which we hold by oneend 
in tin' hand, and which i- capable of guiding the faithful inquirer 
farther and farther into the inmost recesses of the labyrinth of na- 
ture Ages on ages may elapse, before it conduct the patient in- 
tellect to the wonders of science, to which it will eventually lead 
him ; and. perhaps, with the next step he takes, he will reach the 
goal, and principle's, destined to affect the condition of millions, 
Ik am in characters of light upon his understanding. What was at 
once more unexpected and more obvious, than Newton's discovery 
of the nature of lighl ? Every living being, since the creation of 
the world, had gazed on the rainbow; to none had the beautiful 
myster} revealed itself. Vnd even the great philosopher himself, 
while dissecting the solar beam, while actually untwisting the gold- 
en and silver threads that compose the ray of light, laid open hut 
half it> wonders. And who shall say that to us, to whom, as we 
think, modern science has disclosed the residue, truths more won- 
derful than those n<>w known, will not yet he revealed? 

It is, therefore, by no means to he inferred, because the human 
mind has seemed to linger for a long time around certain results, 
— as ultimate principles, — that they and the principle- closely con- 
nected with them, are not likely to be pushed much farther: nor, 
on the other hand, does the intellect always require much time to 
Iwini: it- ooblest fruits to seeming perfection, [t was, I suppose, about 
two thousand years from the time when the peculiar properties of 
the magnet were firsl observed, before it became, through the means 
of those qualities, the pilot which guided Columbus to the Ameri- 
can continent. Refore the invention of the compass could take 
full effect, it was necessary that some navigator should practically 
and boldly grasp the idea that the globe is round. The tWO truths 

are apparently without connexion ; but in their application to prac- 
tice, thej are intimatel) associated. Hobbes says thai I >r Harvey 
the illustrious discov< rer of the circulation of the blood, i- the only 
author of a great discovery, who ever lived to see it universally 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 575 

adopted. To the honor of subsequent science, this remark could 
not now, with equal truth, be made. Nor was Harvey himself 
without some painful experience of the obstacles arising from pop- 
ular ignorance, against which truth sometimes forces its way to gen- 
eral acceptance. When he first proposed the beautiful doctrine, 
his practice fell off; people would not continue to trust their lives 
in the hands of such a dreamer. When it was firmly established, 
and generally received, one of his opponents published a tract, de 
circulo sanguinis Salom-oneo, and proved from the twelfth chap- 
ter of Ecclesiastes, that the circulation of the blood was no secret, 
in the time of Solomon. The whole doctrine of the Reformation 
may be found in the writings of Wiclif ; but neither he nor his age 
felt the importance of his principles, nor the consequences to which 
they led. Huss had studied the writings of Wiclif in manuscript, 
and was in no degree behind him, in the boldness with which he 
denounced the papal usurpations. But his voice was not heard 
beyond the mountains of Bohemia ; — and he expired in agony at 
the stake, and his ashes were scattered upon the Rhine. A hun- 
dred years passed away. Luther, like an avenging angel, burst 
upon the world, and denounced the corruptions of the church, and 
rallied the host of the faithful, with a voice which might almost 
call up those ashes from their watery grave, and form and kindle 
them again into a living witness to the truth. 

Thus Providence, which has ends innumerable to answer, in the 
conduct of the physical and intellectual, as of the moral world, 
sometimes permits the great discoverers fully to enjoy their fame ; 
sometimes to catch but a glimpse of the extent of their achieve- 
ments ; and sometimes sends them, dejected and heart-broken, to 
the grave, unconscious of the importance of their own discoveries, 
and not merely undervalued by their contemporaries, but by them- 
selves. It is plain that Copernicus, like his great contemporary, 
Columbus, though fully conscious of the boldness and the novelty 
of his doctrine, saw but a part of the changes it was to effect in 
science. After harboring in his bosom for lonu-. lon<<- years, that 
pernicious heresy, — the solar system, — he died on the day of the 
appearance of his book from the press. The closing scene of his 
life, with a little help from the imagination, would furnish a noble 
subject for an artist. For thirty-five years, he has revolved and 



576 i\i.ki.tt\- orations. 

matured in his mind, his system of the heavens. A natural mild- 
ness of disposition, bordering on timidity, ;i reluctance to encounter 
controversy, and a dread of persecution, have led him to withhold 
his work (bom the press; and to make known his system hut to a 
few confidential disciples and friends. At length he draws near 
his end; he is seventy-three years of age, and he yields his work 
on 'the revolutions of the heavenly orhs ' to his friends for publi- 
cation. The day. ;it last, has come, on which it is to be ushered 
into the world. It is the twenty-fourth of .Mav. 1543. On that 
day. — the effect, no doubt, of the intense excitement of his mind. 
operating upon an exhausted frame, — an effusion of hlood brings 
him to the gates of the grave. His last hour has come: he lies 
stretched upon the couch, from which he will never rise, in his 
apartment at the Canonry at Frauenberg, in East Prussia. The 
beams of the setting sun glance through the gothic windows of his 
chamber: mar his bed-side is the armillary sphere, which he has 
contrived, to represent his theory of the heavens, — his picture, 
painted by himself, the amusement of his earlier years, hangs be- 
fore him : beneath it his astrolabe and other imperfect astronomical 
instruments : and around him are gathered his sorrowing disciple-. 
The door of the apartment opens : — the e\ e of the departing sage 
is turned to see who enters: it is a friend, who brings him the first 
printed cop) of his immortal treatise. He knows that in that book 
he contradicts all that had ever been distinctly taught by former 

philosophers; — he knows that he has rebelled against the s\sa\ of 
Ptolemy, which the scientific world had acknowledged for a thou- 
sand years; — he know- that the popular mind will be shocked by 
his innovations; — he knows that the attempt will be made to press 
even religion into the service againsl him: — but he know- that his 
book i- true. He is dying, bu! he leaves a glorious truth, as his 
dying bequest, to the world, lie bids the friend who has broughl 

it, place himself between the window and hi- bed-side, that the 
sun's rays ma) fall upon the precious Volume, and he mav behold 

itoncr.brii.il' hi- eye grows dim. lie looks upon it, takes it in 

in- hands, presses it to hi- breast, and expires. Bui no. he is not 

wholly gone! A smile lights up his dying countenance; — a beam 
of returning intelligence kindles j n his eye; — his lips move; — and 

the friend, who lean- over him. can bear him faintly murmur the 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 577 

beautiful sentiments, which the Christian lyrist, of a later age, has 
so finely expressed in verse ; — 

Yc golden lamps of heaven, farewell, with all your feeble light! 

Farewell, thou ever-changing moon, pale empress of the night! 

And thou, refulgent orb of day, in brighter flames arrayed, 

My soul, which springs beyond thy sphere, no more demands thy aid. 

Ye stars are but the shining dust of my divine abode, 

The pavement oftho.se heavenly courts, when: I shall reign with God! 

So died the great Columbus of the heavens.* His doctrine, at 
first, for want of a general diffusion of knowledge, forced its way 
with difficulty against the deep-rooted prejudices of the age. Tycho 
Brahe attempted to restore the absurdities of the Ptolemaic system ; 
but Kepler, with a sagacity, which more than atones for all his 
strange fancies, laid hold of the theory of Copernicus, with a grasp 
of iron, and dragged it into repute. Galileo turned his telescope to 
the heavens, and observed the phases of Venus, which Copernicus 
boldly predicted must be discovered, as his theory required their 
appearance ; and lastly Newton arose, like a glorious sun, scatter- 
ing the mists of doubt and opposition, and ascended the heavens 
full-orbed and cloudless, establishing at once his own renown and 
that of his predecessors, and crowned with the applauses of the 
world ; but declaring, with that angelic modesty which marked his 
character, ' I do not know what I may appear to the world ; but 
to myself I seem to have been only like a boy, playing on the sea- 
shore, and diverting myself in finding now and then a pebble, or a 
prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all 
undiscovered before me.'f 

* " Ceterum editio jam perfecta erat, illiusque exemplum Rheticus ad ipsum 
mittebat, cum ecce, (ut optimus (Jysius ad ipsum Rheticum rescripsit) qui vir 
fuerat tot I aetate valetudinc satis firma, laborare cepit sanguinis profluvio et insequuta 
ex improviso paralysi ad dextrum latus. Per hoc tompus memoria illi vigorque 
mentis debilitatus. Habuit nihilominus, undo ad hanc vitam et dimittendam et cum 
meliore commutandam se compararet. Contigit autem, ut codoin die ac horis aon 
multis priusquam anirnam efllaret, operis exemplum, ad se destinaturn sibique 
oblatum, et viderit quidem et contigcrit ; sed erant jam turn alia ipsi cura. Q,uarc 
ad hoc compositus, animam Deo reddidit, die Maii x.xiv anno MDXLIII, cum foret 
tribus jam mensibus et. diebus quinque septuagenario major. Atque hujus modi 
quidem vita, hujnsmodi mors Copernici fuit. JVicolai Copernici Vita. Opera 
Petri TJassendi, Tom. v, p. 451. 

t Jirewster's Life of Sir Isaac Newton, p. 301. 

72 



578 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

But whether the progress of an] particular discovery toward a 
general reception be prompl or tardy, it is one of the laws of in- 
tellectual influence, as il is one of the great principles, on which 
we maintain, that the general diffusion of knowledge is favorable 
to the growth of science, thai whatsoever be the fortune of inventors 

and discoverers, the invention and discover) are i tortal, — the 

teacher dies in honor or neglect, bul his doctrine survives. Fagots 
may consume bis frame, but the truths he taught, like the spirit it 
enclosed, can never die. Partial and erroneous views maj even 
retard his own mind, in the pursuit of a fruitful thought : hut the 
errors of one age are the guides of the next ; and the failure of one 
great mind but puts its successor on a different track, and teaches 
him to approach the object from a new point of observation. 

In estimating the effect of a popular system of education upon 
the growth of science, it is necessary to hear in mind a circumstance, 
in which the present age and that which preceded it, are strongly 
discriminated from former periods; and that is the vastly greater 
extent, to which science exists among men, who do not desire to be 
known to the world as authors. Since the dawn of civilization on 
Egypl and \~ia Minor, there never have been wanting indn iduals, — 
sometimes many flourishing at the same time, — who have made the 
mosl distinguished attainments in knowledge. Such, however, has 
In en the condition of the world, thai thej formed a class bj them- 
selves. Their knowledge was transmitted in schools, often under 
strict injunctions of secrecy : or if recorded in books, — for want of 
the press, and owing to the constitution of society, — it made but 
little impression on the mass of the community and the business of 
life. As far is there is an) striking exception to this remark, it is 
in the fret states of antiquity, in which, through the medium of the 
popular organization of the governments, and the necessity of con- 
stant appeals to the people, the cultivated intellect was broughl 
into close association with the understandings of the majority of 
men. This fact may perhaps go far to explain the astonishing 
. and enduring power of the Grecian civilization, which re- 
mains to this day. after all that has been said to explain it. one of 
the most extraordinary facts in tin' historj of the human mind. 
Hut from the period <>l the downfall of the Roman republic, and 
more especially after the establishment of the feudal system, the 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 579 

division of the community into four classes, viz., the landed aristoc- 
racy, or nobles and gentry ; the spiritual aristocracy, or priesthood ; 
the inhabitants of the cities ; and the peasantry ; (a division, which 
has in modern Europe been considerably modified, — in some coun- 
tries more, and in some less, — but in none wholly obliterated), — the 
action and manifestation of knowledge were, till a comparatively 
recent period, almost monopolized by the two higher classes ; and 
in their hands it assumed in a great degree a literary, by which 1 
mean, a book form. Such, of course, must ever, with reasonable 
qualifications, continue to be the case ; and books will always be, in 
a great degree, the vehicle, by which knowledge is to be communi- 
cated, preserved and transmitted. 

But it is impossible to overlook the fact, — it is one of the most 
characteristic features of the civilization of the age, that this is far 
less exclusively the case, than at any former period. The com- 
munity is filled with an incalculable amount of unwritten know- 
ledge, of science which never will be committed to paper by the 
active men who possess it, and which has been acquired on the 
basis of a good education, by observation, experience, and the action 
of the mind itself. A hundred and fifty years ago, it is doubtful 
whether, out of the observatories and universities, there were ten 
men in Europe who could ascertain the longitude by lunar observa- 
tion. At the present day, scarce a vessel sails to foreign lands, in 
the public or mercantile service, in which the process is not under- 
stood. In like manner, in our manufacturing establishments, in the 
construction and direction of railroads and canals, on the improved 
farms throughout the country, there is possessed, embodied, and 
brought into action, a vast deal of useful knowledge, of which its 
possessors will never make a literary use, for the composition of a 
book, but which is daily employed to the signal advantage of the 
country. Much of it is directly derived from a study of the great 
book of nature, whose pages are written by the hand of God ; and 
which, in no part of the civilized world, has been more faithfully or 
profitably studied than in New-England. The intelligent population 
of the country, furnished with the keys of knowledge at our in- 
stitutions of education, have addressed themselves to the further ac- 
quisition of useful science, — to its acquisition at once, and applica- 



•">-<> EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

tion, — with a vigor, a diligence, ;i versatility, and a success, which 
are the admiration of the world. 

Lei it oot be supposed, thai I wish to disconnect this diffusive 
science, from thai which is recorded and propagated in books ; to 
do tliis, would be to reverse the error of former ages. It is the 
signal improvement of the presenl day, thai the action and reaction 
of book-learning and general intelligence arc so prompt, intense, 
and all-pervading. The moment a discovery is made, a principle 
demonstrated, a proposition advanced through the medium of the 
press, in any pari of the world, it finds immediately a host, num- 
berless as the sands of the sea. prepared to lake it up, to can 
confirm, refute, or pursue it. At every waterfall, on the line of 
every canal and railroad, in the counting-room of every factory and 
mercantile establishment, on the quarter-deck of every ship which 
navigates the high seas, on the farm of every intelligent husband- 
man, in the workshop of every skilful mechanic, at the desk of the 
schoolmaster, in the office of the lawyer, the study of the physician 
and clergyman, at the fireside of every man, who has had the 
elements of a good education, not less than in the professed retreats 
of learning, there is an intellect to seize, to weigh, and appropriate 
the suggestion, whether ii helong to the world of science, of taste, 
or of morals. 

In some countries there may be more, and in some less, of this 
latent intellectual power; latent 1 call it, in reference not to its 

action on life, bul to its display in hooks. In some countries, the 
books are in advance of the people, in others greatly behind them. 
In Europe, as compared with America, the advantage is in favor of 
the hooks. The restraint imposed upon the mind, in reference to 
all political questions, has bad the effect of driving more than a pro- 
portion of the intellect of that part of the world into the cultivation 
of science and literature, as a profession; and if we wen to judge 
merel) from the character of a few great works published at the 
expense of the government, and the attainments of a few individ- 
uals. Italy and Austria would stand on a level with Great Britain 
and Prance. The greal difference between nation and nation, in 
n fi rence to knowledgi . is in fact, in no small degree, in this very 
distinction. In reference to the attainments of scholars and men 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 581 

of science by profession, of which some few are found in every 
civilized country, all nations may be considered as forming one 
intellectual republic ; but in reference to the diffusion of knowledge 
among the people, its action on the character of nations, its 
fruitful influence on society, — the most important differences exist 
between different countries. 

III. There remains to be discussed the last topic of our address, — 
the influence of a general diffusion of knowledge on morals, a point 
which, if it were debatable, would raise a question of portentous 
import ; — for if the diffusion of knowledge is unfriendly to good- 
ness, shall we take refuge in the reign of ignorance ? What is the 
precise question on which, in this connexion, rational scruples may 
be started, deserving a serious answer ? 

The merits of the case may, I believe, be stated somewhat as 
follows : — that there seems, in individuals, no fixed proportion be- 
tween intellectual and moral growth. Eminent talent and dis- 
tinguished attainment are sometimes connected with obliquity of 
character. Of those who have reached the heights of speculative 
science, not all are entitled to the commendation bestowed on Sir 
William Jones, — that he was ' learned, without pride ; and not too 
wise to pray ;' and one entire class of men of letters and science, 
the French philosophers of the last century, were, as a body, — 
though by no means without honorable exceptions, — notorious for 
a disbelief of revealed religion ; an insensibility to the delicacies of 
moral restraint ; a want of that purity of feeling and character, 
which we would gladly consider the inseparable attendant of 
intellectual cultivation. It is a question of deep interest, whether, 
from these facts, and others like them, any thing can be fairly 
deduced, unfavorable to the moral influence of a diffusion of know- 
ledge. 

No country in Europe had retained more of the feudal divisions 
than France before the Revolution. A partition of the orders of 
society, but little less rigid than the oriental economy of castes, was 
kept up. Causes, which time would fail us to develop, had 
rendered the court and capital of France signally corrupt, during 
the last century. It is doubtful whether, in a civilized state, the 
foundations of social morality were ever so totally subverted. It 
was by no means one of the least active causes of this corruption, 



")--' EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

that all connexion between the court and capital, and the higher 
ranks in general, on the one hand, and the people on the other? 
was cut off by the constitution of society, and the hopele^ di ipres- 
sion, degradation, and ignorance of the mass of the people. Under 
these influences, the school of the encyclopedists was trained. 
The} did nol make, they found the corruption. They were 
reared in it. They grevt up in the presence and under the patron- 
age of a most dissolute court, surrounded by the atmosphere of an 
abandoned metropolis, without the constraint, the corrective, or the 
check of ;i wholesome public sentiment, emanating from an intelli- 
gent and virtuous population. The great monitors of society 
were hushed. The pulpit, not over active at that time as a moral 
teacher in the Catholic church in Europe, was struck dumb, for 
some of the highest dignitaries were stained with all the vices of the 
rest of their order, that of the nobility: and some of the mosl 
virtuous and eloquent of the prelates had been obliged to exhaust 
their talents in panegyrics of the frail but royal dead. The press 
was mute on every thing which touched the vices of the time. It 
was not then the diffusion of knowledge, from the philosophical 
circles of Paris, that corrupted France ; it was the gross darkness 
of the provinces, and the deep degradation every whereof the 
majority of the people, which left unrebuked the depravity of the 
capital. It was precisely a diffusion of knowledge that was want- 
ed. And it", as I doubt not, France at this time is more virtuous, 
(notwithstanding the demoralizing effects of the Revolution and it^ 
wars), than at any former period, it is owing to the diffusion of 
knowledge, which has followed the subversion of feudalism, and 
the regeneration of the provinces. Paris has ceased to be France. 
A dissolute court has ceased to give the tone of feeling to the 
entire kingdom ; for an intelligent class of independent citizens and 
husbandmen has sprung up on the ruins of a decayed landed 
cracy, and the reformation of Prance is rapidly going on, in 

the elevation of the intellectual, and with it the political, .-ocial. and 

moral character of the people. 

I do noi dei in it oecessarj to argue, at length, against anj 
general inference from individual cases, in which intellectual 
eminence has been associated with moral depravity. The question 
concerns general influences and natural tendencies, and must be 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 583 

considered mainly in reference to the comparative effects of 
ignorance and knowledge on communities, nations, and ages. In 
this reference, nothing is more certain than that the diffusion of 
knowledge is friendly to the benign influence of religion and morals. 
The illustrations of this great truth are so abundant, that I know 
not where to begin nor where to end with them. Knowledge is the 
faithful ally both of natural and revealed religion. Natural religion 
is one grand deduction made by the enlightened understanding, 
from a faithful study of the great book of nature ; and the record 
of revealed religion, contained in the Bible, is not merely confirmed 
by the harmony which the mind delights to trace between it and 
the 'elder Scripture writ by God's own hand;' but Revelation, in 
all ages, has called to its aid the meditations and researches of pious 
and learned men ; and most assuredly, at every period, for one man 
of learning, superficial or profound, who has turned the weapons of 
science against religion or morals, hundreds have consecrated their 
labors to their defence. Christianity is revealed to the mind of 
man, in a peculiar sense. To what are its hopes, its sanctions, its 
precepts addressed ; to the physical or the intellectual portion of 
his nature ; to the perishing or the immortal element ? Is it on 
ignorance or on knowledge, that its evidences repose ? Is it by 
ignorance or knowledge, that its sacred records are translated from 
the original tongues, into the thousands of languages, spoken in the 
world ? — and if, by perverted knowledge, it has sometimes been 
attacked, is it by ignorance or knowledge that it has been and must 
be defended ? What but knowledge is to prevent us, in short, from 
being borne down and carried away, by the overwhelming tide of 
fanaticism and delusion, put in motion by the moon-struck im- 
postors of the day ? Before we permit ourselves to be agitated 
with painful doubts as to the connexion of a diffusion of knowledge 
with religion and morals, let us remember that, in proportion to the 
ignorance of a community, is the ease with which their belief can 
be shaken and their assent attained to the last specious delusion of 
the day, — till you may finally get down to a degree of ignorance, 
on which reason and Scripture are alike lost ; which is ready to re- 
ceive Joe Smith as an inspired prophet, and Matthias as but 

shame and horror forbid me to complete the sentence. 



584 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

But this topic must ho treated in a higher strain. The diffusion 
of knowledge is not merely favorable to religion and morals, hut. 
in the last and highest analysis, thej cannot he separated from each 
oilier. In the great prototype of our feeble ideas of perfection, the 
wise and the ^ood are so blended together, that the ahs< nei of one 
would enfeeble and impair the other. There can be no real know- 
ledge of truth which does not tend to purifj and elevate the affec- 
tion-. A little knowledge. — much knowledge. — may not, in indi- 
vidual cases, subdue the passions of a cold, corrupt, and Belfisfa 
heart. But if knowledge will not do it, can it be done by the 
want of know ledge? 

W hat i- human knowledge? It is the cultivation and improve- 
ment of the spiritual principle in man. We arc composed of two 
elements ; the one, a little dust caught up from the earth, to which 
we shall soon return ; the other, a spark of that divine intelligence, 
in which and through which we bear the image of the great Crea- 
tor. By knowledge, the wings of the intellect are spread; — by 
ignorance, they are closed and palsied; and the physical passions 
are lefi to gain the ascendancy. Knowledge opens all the senses 
to the wonders of creation ; ignorance seals them up. and leaves 
the animal propensities unbalanced by reflection, enthusiasm, and 
taste. To the ignorant man. the glorious pomp of daj . the spark- 
ling mysteries of night, the majestic ocean, the rushing storm, the 
plenty-bearing river, the salubrious breeze, the fertile field, the do- 
cile animal tribes, the broad, the \anoii-. the unexhausted domain 
of nature, are a mere outward pageant, poorly understood in their 
character and harmony, and prized only so far as they niini-ti r to 
the supply of sensual wants. How different the scene to the 
man w hose mind is stored with knowledge ! For him the myst< rj 
is unfolded, the veils lifted up. as one after another he turns the 
of that great volume of creation, which is filled in everj 
with the characters of wisdom, power, and love; with lessons 
ol truth the most exalted ; within : unspeakable loveliness 

and wonder ; arguments of Piw idence ; food for meditation ; themes 
ol praise. One noble ends him to the barren hills, and 

teaches him to survey their broken precipices. Where ignorance 
beholds nothing but a rough inorganic mass, instruction discerns 
tin intelligible record of the primal convulsions of the world ; the 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 585 

secrets of ages before man was ; the landmarks of the elemental 
struggles and throes of what is now the terraqueous globe. Buried 
monsters, of which the races are now extinct, are dragged out of 
deep strata, dug out of eternal rocks, and brought almost to life, to 
bear witness to the power that created them. Before the admiring 
student of nature has realized all the wonders of the elder world, 
thus, as it were, re-created by science, another delightful instruct- 
ress, with her microscope in her hand, bids him sit down and learn 
at last to know the universe in which he lives ; and contemplate 
the limbs, the motions, the circulations of races of animals, disport- 
ing in their tempestuous ocean, — a drop of water. Then, while 
his whole soul is penetrated with admiration of the power which 
has filled with life, and motion, and sense, these all but non-exist- 
ent atoms, — O, then, let the divinest of the muses, let astronomy 
approach, and take him by the hand ; let her 

Come, but keep her wonted state, 
With even step and musing gait, 
And looks commercing with the skies, 
Her rapt soul sitting in her eyes: — 

Let her lead him to the mount of vision ; let her turn her heaven- 
piercing tube to the sparkling vault : through that, let him observe 
the serene star of evening, and see it transformed into a cloud-en- 
compassed orb, a world of rugged mountains and stormy deeps; or 
behold the pale beams of Saturn, lost to the untaught observer 
amidst myriads of brighter stars, and see them expand into the 
broad disk of a noble planet, — the seven attendant worlds, — the 
wondrous rings, — a mighty system in itself, borne at the rate of 
twenty -two thousand miles an hour, on its broad pathway through 
the heavens ; and then let him reflect that our great solar system, 
of which Saturn and his stupendous retinue is but a small part, fills 
itself, in the general structure of the universe, but the space of one 
fixed star ; and that the power which filled the drop of water with 
millions of living beings, is present and active, throughout this 
illimitable creation ! — Yes, yes, 

The undevout astronomer is mad ! 

But it is time to quit these sublime contemplations, and bring 
this address to a close. I may seem to have undertaken a super- 
73 



586 EVERETT'S ORATION-. 

fluous labor, in pleading the cause of education. This institution. 
consecrated to learning and piety ; these academic festivities ; this 
favoring audience, which bestows its countenance on our literary 
i si ii ises ; the presence of so many young men, embarking on the 
ocean of life, devoted to the great interests of the rational mind 
and immortal soul, bear witness for me, that the cause of education 
stands not here in need of champions. Let it be our pride, that it 
has never Deeded them, among the descendants of the Pilgrims; 
let it be our vow. that, by the blessing of Providence, it never 
shall need them, so long as there is a descendant of the Pilgrims 
to plead its worth. Yes, let the pride of military glory belong to 
foreign regions; let the refined corruptions of the older world at- 
tracl the traveller to its splendid capitals ; let a fervid sun ripen, 
for other states, the luxuries of a tropical clime. Let it be ours to 
boast that we inherit a land of liberty and light ; let the school- 
house and the church continue to be the landmarks of the JNew- 
England village ; let the son of New-England, whithersoever he 
may wander, leave thai behind him, which shall make him home- 
sick for his native land ; let freedom, and knowledge, and morals, 
and religion, as they are our birthright, be the birthright of our 
children to the end of time ! 



ADDRESS 

DELIVERED AT BLOODY BROOK, IN SOUTH DEERFIELD, SEPTEMBER 
30, 1835, IN COMMEMORATION OF THE FALL OF THE ' FLOWER 
OF ESSEX,' AT THAT SPOT, IN KING PHILIP'S WAR, SEPTEMBER 

18, (o. s.) 1675. 



Gathered together in this temple not made with hands, to 
unroll the venerable record of our fathers' history, let our first thoughts 
ascend to Him, whose heavens are spread out, as a glorious cano- 
py, above our heads. As our eyes look up to the everlasting hills 
which rise before us, let us remember that in the dark and eventful 
days we commemorate, the hand that lifted their eternal pillars to 
the clouds, was the sole stay and support of our afflicted sires. 
While we contemplate the lovely scene around us, — once covered 
with the gloomy forest and the tangled swamps, through which the 
victims of this day pursued their unsuspecting path to the field of 
slaughter, — let us bow in gratitude to Him, beneath whose pater- 
nal care a little one has become a thousand, and a small one a strong 
nation. Assembled under the shadow of this venerable tree, let 
us bear in thankful recollection, that at the period when its sturdy 
limbs which now spread over us, hung with nature's rich and ver- 
dant tapestry, were all folded up within the narrow compass of 
their seminal germ, — the thousand settlements of our beloved coun- 
try, teeming with the life, energy, and power of prosperous millions, 
were struggling with unimagined hardships for a doubtful existence, 
in a score of feeble plantations scattered through the hostile wilder- 



.")-> EVEBETT'B ORATIONS. 

ness. Alas, it was not alone the genial showers, and the gentle 
dews, and the native richness of the soil, which nourished the 
growth of this stately tree. The sod from which it sprung, was 
moistened with the hlood of brave men who fell for their country, 
and the ashes of peaceful dwellings are mingled with the consecra- 
ted earth. In like manner, it is not alone the wisdom and the 
courage, the piety and the virtue of our fathers, — not alone the pru- 
dence with which they laid the foundations of the state, to which 
we are indebted for its happy growth and all-pervading prosperity. 
.No. we oimht never to forget, we ought this day especially to re- 
member, that it was in their sacrifices and trials, their heart-rending 
sorrows, their ever-renewed tribulations, their wanderings, then- 
conflicts, their wants, and their woes, — that the corner-stone of our 
privileges and blessings was laid. 

As I stand on this hallowed spot, my mind filled with the tradi- 
tions of that disastrous da) . surrounded by these enduring natural 
memorials, impressed with the touching ceremonies we have just 
witnessed, — the affecting incidents of the bloody scene crowd up- 
on my imagination. This compact and prosperous village disap- 
pears, and a few scattered log cabins are seen, in the bosom of the 
primeval forest, clustering for protection around the rude block- 
house in the centre. A corn-field or two lias been rescued from 
the all-surrounding wilderness, and here and there the yelluvv husks 
are heard to rustle in the breeze, that comes loaded with the mourn- 
ful sighs of the melancholy pine wood-. Beyond, the intermina- 
ble forest spreads in every direction, the covert of the wolf, of the 
rattle-snake, of the savage ; and between its gloomy copses, what 
is now a fertile and cultivated meadow, stretches out a dreary ex- 
panse of unreclaimed morass. I look, — 1 listen. All is still, — 
solemnly, — frightfully still. No voice of human activity or en- 
joyment breaks the drear] silence of nature, or mingles with the 
dirge of the woods and water-courses. All seems peaceful and still: 

— ami yel there is a Strange heaviness in the fall of the leave- in 
that wood that skirts the road : — there is an unnatural flitting in 
those shadows; — there is a plashing sound in tie water- of that 
brook, which makes the flesh creep with horror. Hark! ii is the 

• Tick of a gun-lock from that thicket: — no. it is a pebble, that has 

dropped from the over-hanging cYiff, upon the rock beneath. It i-. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 589 

it is the gleaming blade of a scalping-knife ; — no, it is a sun-beam, 
thrown off from that dancing ripple. It is, it is the red feather of a 
savage chief, peeping from behind that maple tree ; — no, it is a 
leaf, which September has touched with her many-tinted pencil. 
And now a distant drum is heard ; yes, that is a sound of life, — 
conscious, proud life. A single fife breaks upon the ear, — a stir- 
ring strain. It is one of the marches, to which the stern warriors 
of Cromwell moved over the field at Naseby and Worcester. 
There are no loyal ears, to take offence at a puritanical march in 
a transatlantic forest ; and hard by, at Hadley, there is a gray- 
haired fugitive, who followed the cheering strain, at the head of 
his division in the army of the great usurper. The warlike note 
grows louder ; — I hear the tread of armed men : — but 1 run before 
my story. 

Before we proceed to the details of the catastrophe, which 
forms the subject of this day's commemoration, let us pause, for a 
moment, on the state of things at that time existing in New-Eng- 
land, and the previous events of the war, of which this was so 
prominent an occurrence. 

Although the continent of America, when discovered by the 
Europeans, was in the possession of the native tribes, it was obvi- 
ously the purpose of Providence, that it should become the abode 
of civilization, the arts, and Christianity. How shall these bless- 
ings be introduced ? Obviously by no other process, — none other 
is practicable, — than an emigration to the new-found continent 
from the civilized communities of Europe. This is doubly neces- 
sary, not only as being the only process adequate to produce the 
desired end, but in order to effect another great purpose connected 
with the relief and regeneration of mankind, namely, the establish- 
ment of a place of refuge for the children of persecution, and the 
opening of a new field of action, where principles of liberty and 
improvement could be developed, without the restraints imposed on 
the work of reform, by the inveterate abuses of the established or- 
der of things abroad. 

There was, therefore, a moral necessity, that the two races should 
be brought into contact, in the newly-discovered region ; the one, 
ignorant, weak in every thing that belongs to intellectual strength, 
feebly redeeming the imperfections of the savage, by the stern and 



590 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

cheerless virtues of the wilderness; — the other, strong in his pow- 
erful arts, in his weapons of destruction, in his capacity of combi- 
nation ; — strong in the intellectual and moral elevation of his char- 
acter and purposes: — the- two thus separated, alas, b) a chasm, 
which seems all but impassable! — A fearful approach: — a perilous 
contiguity ! I>ut hov shall it be avoided ? Shall this fair continent, 
adequate to the support of civilized millions, — on which nature has 
bestowed her bounties, — on which Providence is ready to shower its 
blessings, — lie v, aste, the exclusive domain of the savage and the wild 
beast? Heaven forbid. How shall it be settled ? The age of miracles 
is past : the emigrants must be brought hither, and sustained here. 
by the usual motives and impulses which operate on the minds of 
men. and under the various working of the circumstances of the 
first discover} and occupation. If things are left to second causes, 
the passion for adventure, the lust of power, the thirst for gold, will 
spur on the remorseless band- of Pizarro and Cortes. Prospects 
of political aggrandizement and commercial profit must actuate the 
planters of Virginia. The sword of spiritual persecution must 
drive out the suffering Puritan, in search of a place of rest. In 
com spondence with the motives which prompt the separate expe- 
ditions or the individual leaders, will be the relations established 
with the natives. In Spanish America, a wild and merciless cru- 
sade w ill be vi aged against them ; they w ill be hunted bj the w ar- 
horse and the bloodhound : vasl multitudes will perish, the residue 
will be enslaved, their labor made a source of profit, and they will 
thereby be preserved from annihilation. In the Anglo-American 
settlements, treaties will be entered into, mutual rights acknowl- 
edgi d : th( artificial relation- of independent and allied state- will 

tablished ; and as the civilized race rapidly multiplies, the na- 
tive tribes will recede, sink into the wild' rue-., and disappear. 
Millions of Mexicans, escaping the exterminating sword of the con- 
querors, subsisl in a miserable vassalage to the present day: — of 
the tribes that inhabited New-England, not an individual, of un- 
mixed blood, and speaking the language of bis father-, remains. 

Was this an unavoidable consequence ? However deplorable, 
there is ten much reason to think that it was. We cannot perceive 
in what way the forest could have been cleared, and its place taken 
|,\ the cornfield, without destroying the game; in what way the 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 591 

meadows could be drained, and the beaver-dams broken down, 
without expelling their industrious little builders ; — nor in what 
way the uncivilized man, living from the chase, and requiring a 
wide range of forest for his hunting-ground, destitute of arts and 
letters, — belonging to a different variety of the species, speaking a 
different tongue, suffering all the disadvantages of social and intel- 
lectual inferiority, could maintain his place, by the side of the 
swelling, pressing population, — the diligence and dexterity, — the 
superior thrift, arts, and arms, — the seductive vices, of the civilized 
race. I will not say, that imagination cannot picture a colonial 
settlement, where the emigrants should come in such numbers, 
with such resources, with such principles, dispositions, and tempers, 
as instantly to form a kindly amalgamation with the native tribes ; 
and from the moment of setting foot on the new-found soil, com- 
mence the benign work of brotherhood and assimilation, moving 
forward to a peaceful conquest, beneath the banner of charity. I 
would not stint the resources,. or sound the depths of godlike be- 
nevolence. But in a practical survey of life on both sides, such 
a consummation seems impossible. The new comers are men, — 
men of all tempers and characters. Their society may be formed 
on the platform of religion ; their principles may be pure, lofty, 
austere ; their dispositions peaceful ; their carriage mild and gentle ; 
but their judgments will be fallible, and they cannot be expected 
to rise far above the errors and prejudices of their age. Our fa- 
thers regarded the aboriginal inhabitants as heathen. They bestow- 
ed unwearied pains to christianize them, and with much greater 
success, than is generally supposed. Still the mass remained un- 
converted, and an ominous inference was drawn from the expulsion 
of the native races of Canaan. Scarcely, moreover, were the first 
colonists settled in Plymouth, when licentious adventurers followed 
in their train ; who not only introduced among the Indian tribes 
the destructive vices of the Europeans, and furnished them with 
fire-arms and weapons of steel ; but by acts of violence and injus- 
tice gave provocation for their use. Then, too, we must look on 
the Indian, not with the eye of sentiment and romance, but of truth 
and reality. Seen as he really is, he stands low in the scale of 
humanity. His vices were not all learned of the white settlers. 
Before the European was known on the continent, he was perpet- 



592 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

ually eDgaged in exterminating conflicts w iih the neighboring tribes, 
ilis merciless mode of waging war. — the horrors of the seal ping- 
knife and the slake, arc of bis own invention. Within the bosom 
of bis tribe be leads an indolent, a squalid, and a cheerless exist 4 
ence, alternating from repletion to starvation, — without law to pro- 
tect his property, or restrain his passions; — and between tribe and 
tribe he is unacquainted with those blessings of an international 
code, which do so much to soften the horrors of war. The supe- 
rior race approaches, jealousies arise, conflicts succeed, acts of wo- 
li nee arc committed, and war rages. It is, in its nature, a de- 
structive war. for the savage rarely gives quarter. Is the blame all 
on one side? Does reason require us to trace all the evils to the 
corruption of the civilized race, — to suppose that no malignant 
!< i liii^s, no acts of barbarity, no outbreakings of savage rage or 
savage fraud, are to he laid to the account of the untutored child 
of nature ? 

There arc other considerations, which must not be overlooked in 
this connexion. When we contemplate the mighty throngs in the 
civilized settlements thai now line the coast, and (ill the interior 
legions adjacent to it. we musl not conclude that vast aboriginal 
tribes, once occupying I hem, were exterminated by the hand of 
violence, to make room for the white race. This portion of the 
continent was very thinlj peopled on the arrival of our fathers. 
There never w ere any large tow ns inhabited by the nath es of .New - 
England, like those which were found by the Spaniards, in Mexico 
and Peru. It was probably not practicable, without the aid of the 
arts of civilized life, without the use of iron, and without agricul- 
ture, to support a dense population, in so cold a climate, on a 
comparatively hard soil, covered with forests. In addition to this, 
the population, not crowded at best, had hern greatly reduced by 
a pestilence a few years before the commencement of the planta- 
tion at Plymouth. A constant and uniform statement was made 
h\ the Indians to the first settlers, that an epidemic disease ran 
through all their tribes a fe« years before the landing of the Pil- 
grims, baffling their simple skill, and in some cases reducing large 
(dan- almost to the point of extinction. In this state of things, the 
Mttler- at Plymouth, and afterwards those of Massachusetts, landed 

mi the eua>t. and fifty-five years. — a period longer than that which 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 593 

has elapsed since the peace of 1783, — passed away, before the 
commencement of hostilities in either colony, between the settlers 
and the natives. It is true that in 1636 and 1637, the Pequot war 
broke out in Connecticut ; — a war in which all the New-England 
colonies took part. But the Pequots were themselves an invading 
race. They had dispossessed the tribes, which previously occu- 
pied the eastern portion of Connecticut ; and when the war with 
the English commenced, the remnants of those tribes, cut off or 
subjugated, promptly seized the opportunity of revenging the in- 
juries inflicted on themselves, by the great war-chiefs of the 
Pequots. In the disastrous campaigns of 1636 and 1637, in which 
that tribe was destroyed, one thousand persons are said to have 
perished, and the warriors of Sassacus were computed at seven 
hundred. As every able-bodied savage was a warrior, the whole 
number of his tribe could not have exceeded three thousand, — a 
large community to be subjugated by their own or others' wrong, 
but a small number to lay claim to the perpetual reservation of a 
region like Connecticut. 

There is still another circumstance of very considerable interest 
in reference to the melancholy fate of the New-England Indians. 
To barbarous tribes, who stand as low in the scale of humanity as 
the Pequots and Narragansets, the Wampanoags or the Nipmucks, 
who live by hunting and fishing, with scarce any thing that can be 
called agriculture, and wholly without arts, the removal from 
one tract of country to another is comparatively easy. A change 
of abode implies no great sacrifice of private interest or social pros- 
perity. No fixed property is destroyed, no pursuits deserted not to 
be resumed, no venerable establishments broken up, none of the 
great and costly structures of a civilized state of society abandoned. 
Nor is this all. The extreme simplicity of savage life favors the 
amalgamation of tribes, forced by circumstances upon each other. 
As far as we can trace the relations of the North American tribes 
with each other, both before and since the settlement of the coun- 
try, an absorption of the fragments of once powerful communities, 
by more prosperous tribes, is constantly going on. In no part of 
the human family is war so much the business of life, as among the 
native races of our continent ; nowhere are wars more sanguinary 
and fatal ; and in proportion to the simplicity of their mode of life 
74 






i v i i:r i i • ■ on \ pions. 



is the ease, with which the feolile remnants >>f once powerful but 
subjugated tribes are swallowed up !>v the victor, or fbioed into 
union with neighboring friendly clans, (hi the same principle, 
with the advanoe of civilisation, the native tribes receded. So 
war-, literally, ol extermination, B1 am time, were waged. The 
battles were stern, decisive, and to those engaged in them, fetal. 
I'ii oners of war were reduoed to Blaverj . and sometimes boW into 
a bondage. Bui no general and indiscriminate slaughter took 
place. The number ol Indians slain in the earij wars,! take to 
have been not much greater than thai of the whites, in ihe same 
period. The greal majority of the Indians did, what the settlers of 
Deerfield, Hadley, Northampton, and Springfield were al times 
tempted to do, and would have done, had the war continued; 
the) fell hack upon their kindred. As the English colonists, ifthe 
fortune of war had been adverse, would have gone back from the 
Connecticut river to the coast, the Indians, thai hunted and 
fished on the river, retired before the advanoing settlements, united 
themselvos wuh their brethren farther wesl and north, supplying 
the waste of their continual wars, and easilv incorporated am. mi 
them.* 

I dwell the more on this point, because il is one ol \ 
proach to the memon ol our fathers; and yei I am nol sure, that, 
unless we den) altogether the rightfulness of settling the continent, 
— unless we maintain thai il was from the origin unjusl and wron 
to introduce the civilised race into America, and that the whole of 
what is now our happj ami prosperous country oughl to have been 
left, as it was found, the abode ol barbarity and heathenism,— I am 

not sure, that am different result could have taken place. Had 
the colonist-, mid the Indians been men without interests, passions, 
and vices, occasions of collisions and bloodshed on hoth sides might 
have been avoided ; hut. taking white men as thev are and sa\ 
as the\ are. looking on the one hand not for faultless perfection ol 

i . . U neceuarj to state, that considerations of thi* kind have, do 

applicability to the questions reoentl) agitated in the 1 uitod State*, relative to the 
rights irqnired bj Indian tribe*, undei solemn oompaota, voluntarily onterod i» 1 1 » » b) 
tin- I mi. .1 State*, ;.i ill.' inal hi.-., an. I foi the benefit of an individual State, and i". 
considerations doomed ndvnntageous, ut ilio time, boUt t>' the individual Stat* and 
ilir general government. The authoi 'sop'uuon of those queationa w.i- full) ex| 
i.l. in ilio Hon** of Representative* of the I uited State*, in l^it' and i v ;| 



i:vi:iti;i i ., oka i ion .. 



V.). r , 



sol or policy , "ii the pari ol governments or individuals) bul 

allowing lor the occm ionaJ operation <>l human woaktiu ■ •■• in both, 
miiI expecting <>i the Indians llial they will display toward the now 

i llli I llic violi'iM r ;ni(| liailianly, wllicll 1 1 1 : 1 1 1 -. 1 1 1 < 1 1 inli in ,111 i 

wiili each other, ami which belong i«» uncivilized liealheiig I am 
unable to seoj thai there was on either sido groat mailer ol reproach^ 
<)n the contrary, I see much deserving <>l the highesl commendo 
linn, in 1 1 1< ' Iniiii.iiiii y null forbearance "I the colonists, and in the 
hospitality and mugnanimily ol thu Indian chiefs, who for an entire 
generation maintained the peace ol the country; in the new and 
critical condition <>i affairs in which they were plucod.* The 
colonies ol L lymouth and Massachusetts hoili commenced their 
ii iliiiH ni 111 ;nnii\ widi ilic Indians. ' 1 1 1< • y were welcomed', in 
liuili cases, by ill'' tribes wiili which they came immediately in 
contact i 1 1 was the < lablishud policy ol the colonists to pun lis i 
the Indian title bo the land, ai a price regarded as stitisfaetory l»y 
those who disposed ol it, and l»y prohibiting private purchasci to 
protect the natives from being overreached by adventurei - I 
believe that ii was with perfect pi tice, as ii evidently was wiili 
(•nine sincerity, thai Goveunor Winslow doclarod, in the prinu "I 
1670', thai ' belfarc these present troubles broke out, the English 
1 1 1 < I nol possi one fool ol land in the colony ol Plymouth, l»ni 
what w ; i ■ . fairly obtained \>y honest purchase ol the Indian pro- 
pi iotors.' 

Iinl however justly we may defend the memory of our fathers, 
against the charge ol wantonly pursuing u policy "I extermination, 
ii is nol the less certain, thai il"' march ol events was well cal 
culaled to excite the jealousy <>l the native tribes. Every day's 
experience "I the growing power ol the whites gave force to this 
jealousy ami as war is the mad resort to which, in the blindness 
i.i in |i.i lions, savage as well a:, civilized man instinctively fli< 
(or the redress ol all sorts ol public injuries, real or threatened, it 
w.i perfectly natural, thai the bold and impatient chiefs of the 
native races hould at length begin to contemplate ilm possibility of 
.mi ini" by lone the progress ol the dangerous intruders. Tliry 



■ ' lorne judiciou romorlu on this tubjecl m i\li Uphtun'i Artillery Eloctiou 
.-'ci mull , delivered Junu, 1832, pogc 8. 



596 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

bad learned the use of fire-arms, and obtained a supplj of them 
from the French in Nova Scotia, the Dutch in New-York, and 
from illicit traders in New-England. It required but little discern- 
ment to perceive; that, in everj thing, but the undefined resources 
of civilized communities, (the extent of which they had Dot yet 
learned fully to appreciate), the Indians greatlj overbalanced the 
colonists. In addition to the general sense of encroachmenl and 
danger, it is easj to conceive, that a thousand individual provoca- 
tions, on both sides, must have taken place betwei n parties like the 
whites and the Indians : In which a -real amount of private irrita- 
tion and bitterness was infused into the public sentiment between 
the two races. 

Their relation- toward each other reached their crisis in 1675. 
Thirty-eight war- had elapsed, since the destruction of Sassacus 
and hi- Pequots. A race of young warriors had mown up, on 

whom the lesson of wisdom taught b) that catastrophe was lost. 

A- ha- been just observed, thej had learned to use and repair the 
guns, which they had obtained from various quarters. 'They were 
well acquainted with the numbers and habits of the settlers, and 
had found out. that the proportion of non -combatants to fighting 
men was vast!) greater than among themselves. The Narrag 
and Pokanokets were now the raosl powerful of the New-England 

tribes. Thi'_\- occupied the old colon} of PI3 mouth, and the State 
of Rhode Island. The latter was the tribe, with which the settlers 
of Plymouth first entered into amicable relation-, under their friendly 
chief Massassoit, and these relations remained unimpaired to his 
death. He w a- the linn, the considerate, die unwavering friend of 
the settlers, and adhered with fidelity to the compact which he had 
formed with them, in the very infancy of the colony. Massassoil 

died about 1660. lie left two sons, who, at their own request, and 
during their father's lifetime, received the English name- of Alex- 
ander, and Philip. Alexander was the elder, and exercised the 
authority of sachem on his father's death, not without suspicion, 
how well founded it is now impossible to say, of entertaining hostile 
designs toward the colony. On his death, he was succeeded by 
his brother Philip, a person greatly the superior both of his 

brother and his father, in reach of policy, capacity, vigor, and re- 
nin! With his accession to power in his tribe, the suspicion ol 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 597 

unfriendly purposes toward the whites rapidly increased. The 
government of Plymouth colony entertained serious fears that he 
meditated mischief to the settlement. The government of Massa- 
chusetts seems at first to have thought these fears without founda- 
tion. Under its mediation, an interview between the two parties 
was brought about in the meeting-house at Taunton, in 1671. The 
commissioners of Plymouth and Massachusetts, and their armed 
attendants, being arrayed on one side of the church ; and Philip, 
and his chieftains, on the other. In this conference, Philip made 
the submission which was required of him, renewed the compact 
with Plymouth, and agreed to give up his fire-arms. 

These measures, however they may have delayed the execution 
of his projects, no doubt confirmed him, by the sense of new inju- 
ry, in his ultimate design ; and from this period, he is supposed to 
have meditated the dangerous project of a union of all the tribes in 
New-England against the colonists. 

And here let us pause for a moment, to reflect on the respective 
condition and strength of the parties. Accustomed to what we 
see around us of the power and resources of our own prosperous 
states, and with only a fading tradition of the strength of the In- 
dians, and with our minds habitually penetrated with the impres- 
sion of the essential superiority of the white race, we are in dan- 
ger of greatly mistaking the relative strength of the parties. Very 
different was an Indian war, a century and a half ago, from those 
which are waged at the present day, in which, from the bosom of 
the overswarming population of the States, regiments of infantry, 
artillery, and dragoons are sent out, to trample down the enervated 
remnants of once warlike races, with the certainty, on both sides, if 
that force should fail, that another, twice as powerful, would in- 
stantly take its place. The population of New-England at this 
period, 1675, is not accurately known. It is conjecturally stated 
by Chalmers, at one hundred and twenty thousand. But Dr 
Trumbull, by an accurate deduction from the known number of 
the militia of Connecticut, and the proportion it bore in the levies 
of the United Colonies, reduces it to one third of that amount, 
which I am inclined to think much nearer the truth. The whole 
interior of the country was unsettled. The region west of Con- 
necticut was a pathless wilderness, and that portion of it now with- 



598 1 \ KKETT'S ORATIONS. 

iii the States of Massachusetts and Vermont was unoccupied even 
bj savages. There were a few feeble settlement! on the coasts of 
Maine and New-Hampshine. In Massachusetts, there were anal] 
settlements at WestfieldS Springfield, Northampton^ Hadley, Hat- 
field, Deerfield, and Northfield; — some of them rather stations 
than settlements. After leaving the river to go to the east, Brook" 
field was the first settlement, and this with Lancaster was the only 
settlement in Worcester county. Medfield, Sudbury, Marlborough, 
Groton, Chelmsford, formed the frontier, and were all attacked by 
the Indians, in the course of Philip's war. Tin danger of the set- 
tlements was so great, that all the male inhabitants were required to be 
armed, and although the country was penetrated with the liveliest 
si n-.' of peril, and numerous volunteers marched against the cne- 
mVj — meiK horses, and provisions were continually called for, by 
the severest exercise of the power of impressment. 

The numbers of the Indians are not more accurately known, 
than those of the colonists. The warriors under the immediate 
command of Philip are supposed to have numbered seven hundred. 
Those of the Narragansets, who joined him in the course of the 
war. are estimated at two thousand. The tribes which occupied 

the central portions of the State and the hanks of the river, and 
who were drawn h\ Philip into the contest, cannot be estimated at 
than seven or eight hundred more; making the entire hostile 
force about thirty-live hundred. 

Manv of the advantages of the contest were on the side of the 
Indians. War was their hereditary pursuit: — boldness and forti- 
tude, the capacity of effort and fatigue their chief virtues. The 
generation of colonists then on the stage was wholly unused to 
war. Thirty-eight years had passed, since the conquest of the 
Pequots ; and the military forces now raised, were drawn, to a great 
extent, by conscription, from the various walks of industrious, 
ful life. The Indians had been in the habit of constant in- 
irse with the settlers. They knew the position of tbeii 

towns, and even of their houses, lielch, and places of Worship. 
They knew the persons of the leading men; and were able to 

choose the best place for an ambuscade, and the best time for ao 
assault Sundays and fast days were the chosen times for an at- 
tack : lor then observation had taught them, though the men went 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 599 

armed to meeting, that the aged and the defenceless, the women 
and the children were led, by the strong sense of religious duty, to 
venture abroad. On the other hand, the colonists had, of necessi- 
ty, but a limited acquaintance with the haunts of the Indians, in 
the forests and the swamps. The Indians, though not as well fur- 
nished with arms, were better marksmen than the English. The 
state of the roads, and the nature of Indian warfare, excluded the 
use of artillery, and the peculiar weapons of the savage, the toma- 
hawk and the scalping-knife, with the inhuman tortures inflicted on 
the prisoners, carried terrors to hearts unshaken by common perils. 
Caesar tells us that when, for the first time, he was about to come 
into conflict with the barbarous Germans, — a race which stood at 
about the same point, on the scale of civilization, as the North 
American Indians, — many of the young officers who had followed 
him from Rome, panic-struck with the thought of a battle with the 
dreaded barbarians, sought excuses for asking a furlough ; and 
those whose pride forbade their quitting the army, hid themselves 
in their tents and wept. It is not to be wondered at, if the hor- 
rors of Indian warfare were felt by the young men of Massachu- 
setts, who were dragged from the plough and the workshop, and 
forced to plunge into pathless woods and frightful swamps, in search 
of the ferocious savage. 

Both parties concentrated their strength, as for a decisive strug- 
gle. The confederation among the colonies, of which defence 
against the Indians was the main object, had experienced some 
interruption, but was revived at the commencement of the war. 
A little more than half the troops raised in the United Colonies 
were apportioned on Massachusetts. Philip, on the other hand, had, 
as is supposed, for some years labored to effect a general confederacy 
of the Indian tribes. There are not wanting even suggestions, 
that he endeavored to rouse the native tribes as far south as Vir- 
ginia ; but these suggestions are chiefly entitled to notice, as indi- 
cations of the opinion formed by the English writers of the reach 
of his policy, and activity of his movements. I see in the con- 
temporary accounts, no proof of any such remote operations. But 
the events of the war showed, that he had labored with success 
among all the Indians in New-England, with the exception of the 
Mohegans, and that he narrowly failed to engage the Mohawks in 



600 i.\ i:ki:tt's orations. 

the contest. It deserves remark, that in this fearful struggle for 
life and death, not a dollar nor a man was furnished by the mother 
country, to prevent the colonics from being turned into one heap 
of blood) ashes. 

The designs of Philip were penetrated by his secretary Sausa- 
mon, a converted Indian well acquainted with the English lan- 
guage, and by this channel they were disclosed to the English. 
Sausamon was immediately after murdered on the ice on Middle- 
borough pond, by order of Philip, and the agency of some of his 
chief men. The murder took place within the jurisdiction of Ply- 
mouth, and those concerned in it, three in number, were immedi- 
atelj brought to justice. This happened in the spring of 1675, 
and hastened the commencement of hostilities, which had been re- 
served by Philip for the following year. He was now compelled 
to plunge into the contest, without the aid of the Marragansets, 
who were not yet prepared. The Indians had a superstition, that 
the party which struck the first blow would he defeated. For this 
in, they took pains, by repeated insults and threat-, by killing 
their cattle, and plundering their houses, to bring on an actual com- 
mencement of hostilities, on the part of the settlers. Irritated by 
these provocations, an Englishman at last lired at and mortally 
wounded an Indian. The alarm spread ; intelligence of the state 
of things reached Plymouth and Boston, and troops were put in 
motion. The Indians anticipated their arrival, by an attack on 
the town of Swansea, on the 24th of .June, 1 (>73. The inhabit- 
ants were fired upon, on their return from public worship, and ten 
were killed in different parts of the town on thai day. 

Thus was the hlow -truck, and a war commenced nol inferior in 
magnitudi . compared with the population of the parties engaged in 
it. to the revolutionary war; nor of minor importance, if we con- 
template the consequences, had the Indians prevailed. V.mong 
the romantic traits, with which his biographers have adorned the 
character of Philip, thej have described him as shedding tears, 
when told that his young men had begun the war. Fiftj years 
after his fall, the neighboring inhabitants of Bristol and the aged 
Indians who had survived the war. pointed out the spring where 
Philip was seated when he received the new- of the tragedj at 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS, 601 

Swansea, and wept at the thoughts of the destruction which im- 
pended over his race.* 

But the die was cast. Sorrowful or joyous, Philip roused him- 
self, with all his energies, to the war. Retreating before the em- 
bodied forces of Plymouth and Massachusetts, his warriors were 
divided into bands, and scattered along the frontier settlements, 
carrying terror and havoc before them. Swansea was destroyed, 
Taunton was attacked, Middleborough and Dartmouth burned, and 
all Plymouth filled with alarm. Surrounded in a swamp at Pocas- 
set, the iron grasp of Church almost upon him, the flames of 
Brookfield announce that the theatre of the war is changed, and 
thither the chieftain and his principal warriors repaired. From the 
smoking ashes of Brookfield the scene is shifted to Connecticut 
river ; and Hadley, Hatfield and Deerfield are in arms. 

While the Indians hovered about Brookfield, a considerable force 
from the eastern part of the State, from Springfield, and Connecti- 
cut, was concentrated there, under the skilful command of Major 
Willard. When the Indians disappeared from Brookfield, and 
showed themselves in this region, Major Willard marched, with a 
part of his forces, to Hadley. Here the principal station of de- 
fence was assumed, and the companies of Captain Lothrop and 
Captain Beers, of Watertown, were left in garrison. Major Wil- 
lard returned to the eastern part of the State, and the chief com- 
mand devolved on Major Pynchon, of Springfield. The Indians, 
at Hadley, already in secret understanding with Philip, on his ar- 
rival in their neighborhood, threw off the mask. By professions 
of friendly intentions, they had obtained a supply of arms, and had 
been entrusted with the defence of a fort about a mile above Hat- 
field. The English received intelligence that they were preparing 
to desert the fort, and join the enemy. Determined that they 
should not carry with them the weapons, with which they had 
been furnished for the defence of the settlement, Captains Lothrop 
and Beers, with one hundred men, were sent to disarm them. The 
Indians had already fled in the night to Deerfield. Lothrop and 
Beers came up with them in the morning, in a swamp, a short dis- 
tance south of the sugar-loaf hill, when an action ensued, in which 

* Callendar'a Sermon, page 73. 

75 



602 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

ten of the English and twenty-six of the Indians were slain. This 
was on the 25th of August, old style, L675. 

The 1st of Sept( mber following, was a day of alarm and blood. 
The woods from Hadley to Northfield were filled with luikiDg hands 
of savages. Deerfield was attacked on that day, and many of the 
houses and barns in the settlement were burned. Hadley was as- 
sailed on tlic same day. It was a day observed as a fast by the 
church in that place. While the inhabitants were engaged in the 
religious services, t he savages burst in upon the village. Although 
it was the practice to go armed to church, yet, taken by surprise 
at the sudden inroad, the inhabitants were thrown into confusion. 
The savage foe rushes on ; the citizens are about to disperse and 
fly. At the moment of greatest confusion and danger, a venerable 
stranger appeared, of commanding aspect, clothed in black apparel 
of unusual fashion, his hair white from age. With sword in hand, 
he places himself at the head of the flying inhabitants, encourages 
them to stand and resist the enemy, animates them at once by his 
example and his voice, disposes them in the most advantageous 
manner, fights valiantly at their head, and repulses the enemy. This 
Ibne, he vanishes as promptly as he appeared. The superstitious 
Indians, doI less than the devout and awe-struck English, believed 
it was an angel. The wish to conceal the place of refuge of the 
fugitives, for a long time prevented an explanation of the fact. In 
the course of time it was discovered tn have been General (hide, 
one of the judges who sat in the trial of Charles I, and who. tak- 
ing refuge on this the very frontier of the British empire, with one 
of his colleagues, Whalley, had for many years lived in conceal- 
ment in the house of Mr Russell, the minister at Hadley. 

The inhabitants of the settlements on the river, and indeed in 
the frontier towns generally, were obliged either wholly to confine 
themselves to the garrisoned houses, as they were called, or to rlee 
to them on the first alarm, abandoning their homes and property to 
pillage and conflagration. On the day following the assaults on 
Deerfield and Hadley, a party went out from the garrison al North- 
field, then called Squakeag, to work in the fields. Eight of their 
□umber were shol down, by the invisible foe. Order had been al- 
ready taken in remove the settlers from Northfield, it being consid- 
ered too exposed .1 position. On the 3d of September, not having 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 603 

heard of the tragedy of the preceding day, Captain Beers, of 
Watertown, was despatched from Hadley, with a detachment of 
between thirty and forty mounted men, to bring off the inhabitants 
of Northfield. He passed in safety through the forest, which 
stretched along the eastern bank of the river ; the tract of country 
now occupied by Sunderland, Montague, and Erving's grant. lie 
had crossed Miller's river, before he saw any traces of the enemy. 
Having passed the night about three miles from the place of his 
destination, on the morning of the 4th, they were attacked by a 
large body of Indians before they could regain their horses. Cap- 
tain Beers and several men were killed at the commencement of 
the action. Attempting to reach their horses, twelve more fell ; a 
small remnant only found their way back to Hadley. On the fol- 
lowing day, the 5th, Major Treat, who commanded the Connecti- 
cut troops, was detached from Hadley, with a hundred men, to 
chastise the Indians. But they fled before the approach of a com- 
manding force, into the forest. The heads of Captain Beers' un- 
fortunate men exposed on stakes, where they fell, and their man- 
gled bodies suspended from the trees, bore witness to the fatal issue 
of the battle. Major Treat continued his march without interrup- 
tion, though his troops were fired upon by the concealed foe, and 
he himself struck with a spent ball ; but no one was killed, and 
the inhabitants in garrison at Northfield, were brought off in safe- 
ty. On his way back, he fell in with Captain Appleton, who, in 
expectation of a serious conflict, had followed him from Hadley, 
with a reinforcement ; and who was desirous of pursuing the ene- 
my to his hiding places. But it was judged inexpedient, without 
more accurate information of their numbers, to plunge into the 
forest, and the united force returned to Hadley. Northfield, thus 
abandoned by the inhabitants, was immediately burned by the 
Indians. 

Among the papers preserved in the public archives, I have found 
a list of the unfortunate men who were killed with Captain Beers, 
or made prisoners when he fell. He was an officer of sterling 
valor, a public servant of approved patriotism and usefulness. 
At the time when he fell, in the service of his country, he was, as 
he had been, for thirteen years, the representative of Watertown, 
in the General Court, and deserves that his name should be held 



(ill I I \ ERETT'S orations. 

in honorable remembrance. No monument, — the work of men's 
bands, — marks the spol where he fell; but tradition has affixed 
his name to the plain when' the death-struggle began, and to the 
mountain where he sunk before the savage foe, and will hand it 
down, in grateful remembrance, to the latest posterity. 

Bj the destruction of INorthlield. Dccrlield became the frontier 
settlement mi Connecticut river; and as such was again doomed 
to hear the brunt of savage warfare. On the 12th, as a portion of 
the inhabitants, twenty-two in number, were passing from one of 
the garrisoned houses, to attend worship in the other, they were 
fired upon, but no one was slain. The empty garrison house was 
set on fire, and one man left in it was heard of no more. Aid was 
despatched from Hadley, under Captain Lothrop, who, with the 
men at Deerfield, under Captain Appleton, engaged in an unsuc- 
cessful pursuit of the flying enemy. The master genius who guid- 
ed them, had taught them to carry on exclusively a warfare of 
ambuscade and surprise. 

While these events transpired on Connecticut river, those parts 
of the country where the war broke out were comparatively tran- 
quil. INo man had seen king Philip on Connecticut river : he con- 
stantly went disguised even from his friends, and never passed the 
night twice in the same spot. He was known at this time to be 
in this neighborhood by the transfer of the war to this quarter, by 
the report of friendly Indian-, who acted as spies, and by those 
who occasionally came in as deserters. In the following winter, 
Mrs Rowlandson, who was made prisoner at Lancaster, saw him 
frequently in this region. The tenor of his name wrought power- 
fully on weaker minds, and as he was never encountered in the 
lield. nor identified among those exposed to the chances of war. 
the boldest began to regard him with something of that undefined 
dread, inspired by an invisible and malignant spirit of evil, ranging 
the gloom) forest, lighting up the darkness of night bj the blaze of 
■ lid hamlets; pointing the death-voile} from the ambuscade, at 
the wayfarer and husbandman, and vanishing with the lighl of day, 
or at the approach of a powerful force. 

Having thus sketched the progress of the war in 'in preliminary 
seen* s, we are brought to the affecting tragedy, which is the more 
immediate object of this day- commemoration. The pre i nee ol 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 605 

Philip on the river made it necessary to establish a formidable force 
in some convenient position. Hadley, which had been selected 
for this purpose by Massachusetts, was adopted by the commission- 
ers of the United Colonies, as the most suitable place for the head- 
quarters of the little army. Small detachments were posted at 
the other settlements, but here was concentrated the greater part 
of the troops assigned to this quarter. It of course became neces- 
sary to increase the supply of provisions at Hadley. A considera- 
ble quantity of wheat being preserved in stacks at Deerfield, it 
was deemed expedient to have it threshed, and brought down to 
Hadley. Captain Lothrop and his company volunteered to pro- 
ceed to Deerfield, and protect the convoy. His march from Hadley 
was effected without interruption ; the wheat was threshed, placed 
in eighteen wagons, with a portion of the effects of the inhabitants 
of Deerfield, disposed to remove, and the train moved down the 
road, towards its destination. Captain Moseley, who had arrived 
on Connecticut river three days before, was at this time stationed 
with his company at Deerfield, and proposed, while Captain Loth- 
rop was on the march downward, to range the woods in search of 
the enemy. 

Moseley was a partisan of great skill and courage ; he had com- 
manded a privateer in the West Indies. It is not improbable that 
Captain Lothrop and his men, relying too much on Moseley 's co- 
operation, proceeded with less caution than their safety required. 
Having passed with safety through a level and closely-wooded 
country, well calculated for a surprise, and deeming themselves in 
some degree sheltered by the nature of the ground they had reach- 
ed, the tradition is, that on their arrival at the spot near which we 
are now assembled, their vigilance relaxed. The forest that lines 
the narrow road, on which they were marching, was hung with 
clusters of grapes, and, as the wagons dragged through the heavy 
soil, it is not unlikely that the teamsters, and possibly a part of the 
company, may have dispersed to gather them. Such is the con- 
temporary account. At this moment of fatal security, and just as 
they had reached the brook which winds through the village, a 
band of savages, outnumbering Captain Lothrop's company ten to 
one, pours in upon them a murderous fire, from their place of am- 
buscade on the right of the line of march. A considerable num- 



606 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

her drop at the 6rs1 volley. The Indians spring from their covert, 
upon ilif survivors, who. broken and scattered hy the overwhelm- 
ing attack, fly to the shelter of the forest, on the spot where we 
stand. Here ensued the murderous death-struggle : escape was 
impossible. The young men fled, each to his tree, imitating the 
barbarous foe, in bis mode of warfare, and determined to sell their 
lives as dearly as possible. But the enemy amounted to seven 
hundred ; the force of Captain Lothrop, weakened by the firsl fa- 
tal fire, fell below a tenth of that number. Ili^ men were conse- 
quently surrounded, singled out, shot down, crushed by overwhelm- 
ing numbers, and finally sunk, one great and fearful sacrifice, to 
the tomahawk. Lothrop fell at the commencement of the action, 
'a godly and courageous commander:' the loss of their leader 
added new horrors to the scene, and before its close, the whole 
company, with the exception of a few who escaped, was destroy ed. 

The cruel fate of these unfortunate young men did not remain 
long unavenged. While the Indians were employed in mangling, 
scalping, and stripping the dying and the dead, Captain Moseley, 
who, as has been observed, was ranging the woods, hearing the 
report of musketry, hastened, by a forced march, to the relief of 
his brethren. The Indians, confiding in their superior numbers, 
taunted bim as he advanced, and dared him to the contest. M'i-r- 
ley came on with firmness, repeatedly charged through them, and 
destroyed a large number, with the loss on his side, of hut two 
killed and eleven wounded. His lieutenants, Savage and dicker- 
ing, greatly distinguished themselves on this occasion. He was, 
Iiowcwt. so greatly outnumbered, that though he sustained the ac- 
tion from eleven o'clock till evening, he did not succeed in driving 
the enemy from the field. At this juncture, Major Treat arrived, 
with a hundred soldiers, and sixty Mohegan Indians, and, joining 
his forces with Captain Moseley's, drove the enemj from the field 
of the hard-foughl and murderous action. They fled across the 
brook, about two miles to the westward, closely pursued by the 
American force, and here the action was probably suspended by 
the night. \ quantity of bones recentlj found in that quarter, are 
\- -r\ probably the remains of the Indians who fell there at the close 
of the action. 

The united English force encamped for the night at Deerfield. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 607 

They returned, in the morning, to bury the dead, and found a part 
of the Indians upon the field, stripping the bodies of the victims. 
These they quickly dispersed, and the remains of the brave young 
men, or some portion of them, were committed to the earth, 
near the spot, which we have this day consecrated anew to their 
memory. 

A list of the brave men who fell with Lothrop, with the names 
of the towns to which they belonged, has been preserved in the 
public archives.* They were fifty-nine in number, and three of 
Captain Moseley's shared the same fate. The accounts vary as 
to the number who escaped. Hubbard states them as not above 
seven or eight ; a letter written by Mr Cotton, five days after the 
event, reduces the number to two. A tradition still preserved at 
JNewbury, gives us the name of two out of three reputed surviv- 
ors. An individual who died at Newbury, in the year 1824, at 
the age of ninety-seven, was well acquainted with Henr r Bodwell 
and John Tappan, two of Captain Lothrop's soldiers, 
was a man of great strength. His left arm was broken 1 
ket ball; but,, forcing his way with the but-end of hi 
through a band of Indians, who endeavored to surroum 
got safe to Hadley. John Tappan crept into the cha 
water-course, and drew the grass and shrubs over his heai 
Indians passed near him repeatedly, but he was not di 
The escape of a third, Robert Dutch, of Ipswich, was 
extraordinary. He received a musket-shot in the head, wa 
ed by a tomahawk, stripped of his clothing, and left for de 
the approach of Captain Moseley, he revived and was res 

The tidings of this disastrous day spread alarm anc 
through the colony. Essex felt the bereavement in almo 
family. The flower of her population, — her hopeful you 
' all culled out of the towns belonging to that county,' c 
the voice of duty, in the morning of life, to leave their he 
kindred, and encounter all the horrors of savage warfare, 
down. By the records of the ancient town of Newbur 

* See note at the end of this address. 

t There is some reason to think, that this tradition refers to another act 
neighborhood. 



(||)S EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

pears, that on the 5th of Augusl there were impressed to go against 
the Indian enemy, nine men: on the 6th, seven more ; on the 
27th, ±e\en more. From August 5th to September 27th, there 
were impressed, in the single town of Newbury, thirty men and 
forty-six horses ; facts that show the prodigious severity of the 
mihtarj service of the colony at thai period, — vastly greater than 
at any subsequent period in the history of the country. 

The catastrophe of the L 8th of September, the day we com- 
memorate, was the heaviesl which had befallen the colony. -It 
was a sadder rebuke of 1'rovidence,' says Dr Increase Mather, 
-than any thing that hitherto hath been, 9 — -a black and fatal day, 
wherein there u ere eight persons made widows, and six-and-tw en- 
ty children made fatherless, and ahout sixt\ persons buried in one 
fatal grave.'* 

Time would fail me to recount in detail the succeeding incidents 
ir ; but they ought not to he dismissed without an allu- 
serfield was soon deserted by the inhabitants, and burned 
dians. Springfield was next assaulted, and a considera- 
n of it was sacked and burned. On the 19th of Octo- 
ey was again attacked by a powerful force, but by the 
and successful resistance of the troops then under the 
nnand of Captain Samuel Appleton, was rescued. \ 
warfare was kept up, during the resl of the autumn, on 
ning settlements on Connecticut river, but the storm of 
arried hack to the place of its origin. The great Nar- 
xpedition, in which the combined forces of Massachusetts 
, and Connecticut, were placed under Governor Wins- 
ly mouth, as commander-in-chief, took place in Decem- 
the 19th of that mouth, the great battle of Petaquam- 
fought, which, for the zeal with which the mi a, aft< r a 
fifteen miles in a snow-storm, went into the action. — tin- 
it li which it was fought, — the destruction of the enemy. 
lardships endured li\ the troops, in a nighl march of 
oiles, in the depth of winter, alter the battle, has no par- 
r history. Six captains fell at the head of their compa- 

>t has recently been identified by excavation, <>u the road side, directly 
i. hoose "t" Stephen Whitney, Esq., of South Deeifield. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 609 

nies. By this battle the power of the Narragansets was effectually 
broken. Among the plunder of the day, were muskets which had 
belonged to Captain Lothrop's men. The Indians, who escaped 
from the slaughter, fled to the Nipmuck country. 

Winter gave no respite to this tremendous war. In February, 
Lancaster fell, and, in appalling succession, Medfield, Weymouth, 
Groton. Warwick. Marlborough, Rehoboth, Providence, Chelms- 
ford, Sudbury, Scituate, Bridgewater, Plymouth, and Middle- 
borough, were assaulted and wholly or in part destroyed before the 
middle of May. No period of the revolutionary war was to the 
interior of any part of the United States so disastrous. In May. 
from the lower part of the state, the scene of action again shifted to 
Connecticut river. On the 18th of May, a large body of Indians 
concentrated at Deerfield was surprised by an English force from 
the lower towns, and several hundreds were destroyed. The for- 
tune of the day was unhappily clouded at its close, by the loss of 
Captain Turner, and a considerable number of men. On the 12th 
of June, another furious attack was made on Hadley, but success- 
fully resisted by the troops. 

Again the main body of the enemy disappears from this region, 
and emerges in the \ariaganset country. He is keenly pursued, 
and in the months of July and August sustains several vigorous 
defeats. The tide of fortune turns at once. About a twelvemonth 
from the commencement of the war, the Indians become disheart- 
ened and spiritless, and make their submission in great numbers to 
the colonial governments. 

Philip still stood at bay. He had endeavored, by an artifice of 
cruel treachery, to enlist the Mohawks in the war. But his mur- 
derous fraud was discovered, and the Mohawks, instead of joining, 
swore enmity to him. He was accordingly driven back to the 
neighborhood of Mount Hope, and abandoned by the greater part 
of those, whom he had so lately roused and united in the cause. 
On the 2d of August, he was surprised by Captain Church, — a man 
who, if his province had equalled his intrepidity and skill, would 
have possessed a name in the world, as distinguished as that of any 
of Napoleon's generals. One hundred and thirty of Philip's men 
were slain ; his wife and his son made prisoners. He himself es- 
caped. Some of the Indian prisoners said to Church, •' You have 
76 



610 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

now made Philip ready to die, for you have made him as poor and 
as miserable, as be used to make the English. You have now 
killed or taken all his relations, — and this bout has almost broken 
his heart. 5 

lie makes one more plunge into the swamps. An Indian, whose 
brother Philip had killed for proposing peace, discovered to Church 
the place of his concealment. This intrepid officer, with a lew 
brave volunteers, is instantly at the spot. The swamp is invested 
under cover of darkness, and an Englishman and an Indian planted 
behind every tree, at the outlet. At break of day the attack com- 
mences. The ill-starred chieftain, who, hunted to his last retreat, 
had dropped asleep, started from a troubled dream, seized his gun, 
and, half naked, ran directly toward a tree, behind which were post- 
ed an Englishman and the very Indian whose brother lie had killed. 
The Englishman's gun missed fire; the Indian fires, and shoots the 
fallen chief through the heart. ' He fell upon his face in the mud 
and water, with his gun beneath him. 3 

Such was the fate of Philip, which was immediately followed by 
a termination of the war, in every quarter, except the eastern 
frontier. It was a war of extermination between his followers and 
the whites ; bappy, if the kindred tribes had learned wisdom from 
the fatal lesson. Tims fell king Philip! The ground on which 
we stand is wet with the blood, which flowed beneath the tomahawk 
of his voung men : and the darkness of nighl in these peaceful vales 
was often Lighted up, in days of yore, bj the flames of burning 
villages, kindled by his ruthless warriors. But that blood has sunk, 
not forgotten, bul forgiven, into the ground. Havoc and dismay no 
longer stalk through these happy meadows; — and as we meet to- 
day to perform the simple and affecting rites of commemoration 
over the grave of the gallant victims of the struggle, let us drop a 
compassionate tear also for these the benighted children of the 
forest, — the orphans of Providence, — whose; cruelties have long 
since been expiated bj their fate. It could not he expected ^( 
them, to enter into the high counsels of Heaven. It was not for 
them. — dark and uninstructed even in the wisdom of man. — to com- 
prehend tin' greal design of Providence, of which their wilderness 

was the appointed theatre. It may well have exceeded their 
it_\, a- it baffles OUTS, that this benign work should so often 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 611 

have moved forward through pathways dripping with blood. Yes ! 
the savage fought a relentless war ; but he fought for his native 
land, for the mound that covered the bones of his parents ; he 
fought for his squaw and pappoose ; — no, I will not defraud them 
of the sacred names, which our hearts understand ; — he fought for 
his wife and children. He would have been,not a savage, — he 
would have been a thing, for which language has no name, — for 
which neither human nor brute existence has a parallel, — if he had 
not fought for them. Why, the very wild-cat, the wolf, will spring 
at the throat of the hunter, that enters his den ; — the bear, the 
catamount, will fight for his hollow tree. The Indian was a man ; 
— a degraded, ignorant savage, but a human creature, — aye, and 
he had the feelings of a man. President Mather, in relating the 
encounter of the 1st of August, 1676, the last but one of the war, 
says, ' Philip hardly escaped with his life also. He had fled and 
left his peage behind him ; also his squaw and his son were taken 
captive, and are now prisoners at Plymouth. Thus hath God 
brought that grand enemy into great misery, before he quite de- 
stroy him. It must needs be bitter as death to him, to lose his wife 
and only son, (for the Indians are marvellous fond and affectionate 
towards their children), besides other relations, and almost all his 
subjects, and country also.' 

And what was the fate of Philip's wife and his son ? This is a 
tale for husbands and wives, for parents and children. Young men 
and women, you cannot understand it. What was the fate of 
Philip's wife and child ? She is a woman, he is a lad. They did 
not surely hang them. No, that would have been mercy. The 
boy is the grandson, his mother the daughter-in-law of good old 
Massassoit, the first and the best friend the English ever had, in 
New-England. Perhaps, — perhaps, now Philip is slain and his 
warriors scattered to the four winds, they will allow his wife and 
son to go back, — the widow and the orphan, — to finish their days 
and sorrows, in their native wilderness. They were sold into 
slavery, West Indian slavery ! — an Indian princess and her child, 
sold from the cool breezes of Mount Hope, from the wild freedom 
of a New-England forest, to gasp under the lash, beneath the 
blazing sun of the tropics ! * ' Bitter as death ;' aye, bitter as hell ! 

* Morton's New-England Memorial. Judge Davis's edition, p. 353, &c. 



612 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

Is there ;m\ thing, — I do not sa\ in the range of humanity; — is 
there any thing animated, thai would not struggle against this? [s 
there. — I do DOl saj a man. — who has ever looked in the face of 
his sleeping child ; — a woman. 

that has given suck, and knows 



I low leader 'tis to love the babe, that milks her; 

is there a dumb beast, a brute creature, a thing of earth or of air. 
the lowest in creation, so it be not wholly devoid of thai mysterious 

instinct which binds the oenerations of beings together, that will 
not use the arms, which nature has given it. if you molest the 
spot where its fledglings nestle, where its cubs arc crying for theii 
meal ? 

Then think of the country, for which the Indians foughl ! Who 
can blame them? As Philip looked down from his seat on Mount 
Hope, that glorious eminence, that 

throne of royal state, which far 

Outshone the wealth of Orruus or of Ind, 

Or where the gorgeous east, with richest hand, 

Showers on her kings barbaric pomp and gold, — 

as he looked down and beheld the lovely scene which spread 
beneath, at a summer sunset, — the distant bill-tops blazing with 
gold, the slanting beams streaming along the water-, the broad 
plains, the island groups, the majestic forest,— could he he blamed, 
if bis heart burned within him, as he beheld it all passing, l>\ no 
tank process, from beneath his control into the hands of the 
stranger? A- the river chieftains — the lords of the waterfalls and 
the mountains — ranged this lovel) valley, can it be wondered at, if 
they beheld with bitterness the forest disappearing beneath the 
settler's axe; the fishing place disturbed In his sawmill-: Can 
we nol fane) the feelings with which some strong-minded sai 
the chief of the Pocomtuck Indian-, who should have ascended the 
summit of the sugar-loaf mountain, — (rising as it doe- before us, at 
this moment, in all its loveliness and grandeur), — in company with 

a fii, niiK settler, contemplating the progress already made by the 
white man. and marking the gigantic strides, with which he was 
advancing into the wilderness, should fold his arms and say, ' VVhiti 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 613 

man, there is eternal war between me and thee ! I quit not the 
land of my fathers, but with my life. In those woods, where I bent 
my youthful bow, I will still hunt the deer ; over yonder waters I 
will still glide unrestrained in my bark canoe. By those dashing 
waterfalls I will still lay up my winter's store of food ; on these 
fertile meadows I will still plant my corn. Stranger, the land is 
mine ! I understand not these paper rights. I gave not my con- 
sent, when, as thou sayest, these broad regions were purchased for 
a few baubles, of my fathers. They could sell what was theirs ; 
they could sell no more. How could my father sell that which the 
Great Spirit sent me into the world to live upon ? They knew not 
what they did. The stranger came, a timid suppliant, — few and 
feeble, and asked to lie clown on the red man's bear-skin, and warm 
himself at the red man's fire, and have a little piece of land, to raise 
corn for his women and children ; — and now he is become strong, 
and mighty, and bold, and spreads out his parchment over the 
whole, and says, it is mine. Stranger ! there is not room for us 
both. The Great Spirit has not made us to live together. There 
is poison in the white man's cup ; the white man's dog barks at the 
red man's heels. If I should leave the land of my fathers, whither 
shall I fly ? Shall I go to the south, and dwell among the graves 
of the Pequots ? Shall I wander to the west ; — the fierce Mohawk, 
— the man-eater, — is my foe. Shall I fly to the east, the great 
water is before me. No, stranger ; here I have lived, and here will 
I die ; and if here thou abidest, there is eternal war between me 
and thee. Thou hast taught me thy arts of destruction ; for that 
alone I thank thee ; and now take heed to thy steps, the red man 
is thy foe. When thou goest forth by day, my bullet shall whistle 
by thee ; when thou liest down at night, my knife is at thy throat. 
The noon-day sun shall not discover thy enemy, and the darkness 
of midnight shall not protect thy rest. Thou shalt plant in terror, 
and I will reap in blood ; thou shalt sow the earth with corn, and 
I will strew it with ashes ; thou shalt go forth with the sickle, and 
I will follow after with the scalping-knife; thou shalt build, and I 
will burn, till the white man or the Indian shall cease from the 
land. Go thy way for this time in safety, — but remember, stranger, 
there is eternal war between me and thee ! ' 

Such were the feelings, which influenced the native tribes, at the 



614 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

period of king Philip's war. But let not our generous sympathies 
with them betray us into injustice toward our lathers. The right, 
In- which the Pilgrims settled down upon the soil, was better than 
that, by which a great part of the native tribes (as far as we 
know) laid claim to the possession of it. The tribes along the 
coast were originally, and, at no remote period, conquerors. The 
fathers of Massachusetts and Plymouth, of Rhode Island, and Con- 
necticut, purchased the land of those who claimed it, and often paid 
for it more than once. They purchased it for a consideration 
trifling to the European, but valuable to the Indian. An iron 
hatchet, or a kettle, or a piece of woollen cloth was worth a square 
mile of unproductive forest. There is no overreaching in giving 
but little, for that which, in the hands of the original proprietors, is 
worth nothing. Then as to the conduct of the settlers towards the 
savages, — pains as unwearied as unsuccessful were taken to instruct 
them in the arts of civilized life and Christianity. Since the death 
of the apostle Paul, a nobler, truer, and warmer spirit, than John 
Kliot. never lived : and, taking the state of the country, — the 
narrowness of the means, — the rudeness of the age, into considera- 
tion, the history of the Christian church does not contain an ex- 
ample of resolute, untiiiii'j. successful labor, superior to that of 
translating the entire Scriptures into the language of the native 
tribes of Massachusetts ; a labor performed, not in the flush of 
youth, nor within the luxurious abodes of academic ease, but under 
the constant burden of his duties, as a minister and a preacher, and 
at a time of life when the spirits begin to flag. Eliot was over 
forty-two years of age, when he began to learn the Indian tongue 
and preach to the Indian tribes. 'It is incredible,' says his 
biographer, • how much time, toil, and hardship, he underwent in 
the prosecution of his undertaking; how many weary days mid 
nights rolled over him ; how many tiresome journeys he endured, 
and how inan\ terrible dangers be experienced, [f you would 

know what he fell and what carried him through all. take it in his 
own words, in a letter to Mr Winslow: "1 have not been dry. 
nighl nor day. from the third day of the week to the sixth : but so 
travelled, and at night pull off m\ boots, Wring my Stockings, on 

with them again, and so continue. But God steps in and helps." ' 

These were the circumstances, under which the herculean labor 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 615 

was performed of translating the entire Scriptures into a dialect 
probably as imperfect, as unformed, as remote from the analogy of 
our own tongue, as unmanageable, as any spoken on earth. 

That the settlers made as near an approach to the spirit of the 
gospel, in their dealings with the Indians, as the frailty of our 
nature admits, under the circumstances in which they were placed, 
is clear, I think, from the circumstances already stated. The com- 
mencement of the death-struggle was postponed longer than, in the 
nature of human affairs, might have been expected ; and when it 
came on, he must have a sensibility of a morbid cast, whose sym- 
pathies are enlisted but on one side. I hope I compassionate the 
sufferings of the Indian ; Heaven forbid I should be indifferent to 
the sufferings of the fathers. When Philip's war began, the coast 
of New-England, to a depth of eighteen or twenty miles, and the 
banks of Connecticut river to the northern boundary of this State, 
were the abode of some of the most interesting communities ever 
gathered in the world. I know not, in human history or on the 
face of the globe, a period or a spot, where dearer hopes and richer 
prospects for the cause of liberty and truth were ever centred. It 
was the second generation of settlers ; the wrong of the first 
comers (if wrong it was) could not be laid at their door. They 
formed a group of Christian settlements, a family of youthful re- 
publics, — a germ of civilization, enclosing all that now spreads 
around, — all that for our children and a late posterity shall rise on 
this foundation, — as the acorn encloses the trunk and branches of 
the future oak. Can the philosopher, the statesman, the Christian, 
be indifferent to their fate ? can he contemplate with calmness the 
approach of the catastrophe, that is to sweep these springing towns, 
and cities, and villages, — the elements of future states, — the cradles 
of rising millions, into ruin ? Can we, who have received this 
precious heritage, coolly weigh in the scales of a fastidious criticism 
the counsels and acts, by which our fathers, in the convulsive 
struggle for life, waged the war of extermination, that burst forth 
around them ? That war was brief; but its havoc, and its terrors 
worse than death, no tongue can describe. Six hundred of the in- 
habitants, the greatest part of whom were the very flower of the 
country, fell in battle, or were murdered, oftentimes with circum- 
stances of the most revolting cruelty. This is the number officially 



616 I \ I'. RETT'S ORATIONS. 

reported at the time as falling. We may well suppose that half 
as many more fell victims in the progress of the war. It was a 
loss of her children to New-England, nut inferior to twenty thou- 
sand at the presenl day. What havoc for a single year! Twelve 
town- in Massachusetts, Plymouth, and Rhode Island were utterly 
destroyed; and man} more were greatly injured. Six hundred 
buildings, mostly dwelling-houses, are known to have been burned : 
and. according to Dr Trumbull's calculation, one man in eleven of 
the arms-bearing population was killed, and one house in eleven 
laid in ashes. 

Then contemplate the details of Indian warfare; — they are 
almost too much for the heart of man to bear, even as a tale that 
is told ; — what must they not have been to those who were daily 
and nightly exposed to them! It is almost enough to make one 
faint, to read the simple narrative of Mrs Rowlandson, the wife of 
the minister at Lancaster. It was mid-winter, about five months 
after the catastrophe of Bloody Brook, — her husband was absent 
in Boston, soliciting the means of defence, — when her dwelling- 
house, which had been fortified as a garrison, was assaulted by 
several hundred Indians. The house is soon set on fire, to compel 
the wretched inmates to flee; and yet the bullets, pouring in upon 
them like hail, threaten instant death if they come out. Driven al 

last, by the fl: s, they venture out, men. women, and children. 

Many instantly fall, under the death-shower. Mrs Rowlandson, 
with a child of six years old in her arms, is shot in the side 1>\ a 
bullet, which has first passed through her child's body; her other 
children are torn from her. She is compelled to join the flight <>l 
the savages, into the wilderness, scarcely clad, unprotected against 
the wintry wind- and the night frosts, her mortally wounded child 
in her arm-, perpi lually moaning, Mother, I shall (lit . I shall (I'ii ; 
passing a night in the month of February on the snow . with her 
dying child in her arms, parched with fever, crying for water, 
whicl one would bring it: without food for herself, from Wed- 
nesday night till Saturday night, lill the child died. • I cannot hill 
take notice,' say- the heart-broken mother, ' how. at another time. 
I could not hear to he in a room with a dead person : — bul now 
tin' case is changed. I musl and could lie down with my dead 
babe, all the night alter. In the morning, when they understood 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 617 

that my child was dead, they sent me home to my master's wigwam. 
I went to take up my dead child in my arms, to carry it, but they bid 
me let it alone. There was no resisting, but go I must, and leave 
it.' There are other horrors in that narrative, which I dare not 
repeat. The cruel captivity of Mr Williams, the minister of Deer- 
field, is familiar to you all. It makes the flesh creep, to read it. 
It was not till the year 1759, till Quebec fell, that the settlements 
on Connecticut river were safe from the incursions of the savage 
foe. There are men, I presume, living in Deerfield, who remem- 
ber the time when it was not safe from their incursions. 

No, fellow citizens, let us not, in our commiseration of the fate 
of the native tribes, be insensible to the sufferings, or unjust to the 
memory, of our fathers. Their claims to our reverence, as patriots 
and men, must not be disparaged nor qualified. In this day of 
abundance and prosperity, while we are reaping the fruits of the 
labors and sufferings of our ancestors, it is easy to point out their 
errors, and rebuke their faults. But are we sure, that the great 
work which was given them to do, and which they did, could be 
performed by different men, and in a different way? I speak not 
tauntingly, but in sober earnest, when I say, that it is one thing, in 
an age like this, of peace and prosperity, — in an age of high re- 
finement, and enlightened public sentiment, when the alarms of a 
savage frontier are no longer felt, the hardships of an infant settle- 
ment forgotten, the austerities of a struggling sect have passed 
away, and the dreary delusions of a benighted age are exploded, — 
calmly, from our happy firesides, to theorize on the means by which 
the settlement of the country could have been effected ; and a very 
different thing, in times of persecution and terror, for men, pur- 
sued by the vengeance of an incensed hierarchy, — thrown upon a 
dreary and savage coast, — beset not merely by the savage tribes 
of the wilderness, but, as they believed, by the legions of darkness, 
— to go forth into the forest, to dare, to endure, and to die. We 
revolt at some of the features of the method in which the war 
was carried on, by the Moseleys and Churches, and other stern 
and unrelenting partisans of the day ; but they were made of those 
elements which seem demanded in the composition of a successful 
chieftain, in such a warfare ; and I am not sure that men of milder 
tempers, or softer frames, would have been adequate to the work 
77 



(il- EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

of a winter's campaign, through frozen swamps, where it was ne- 
ir«-;in to creep on your face, through the morass, till you came 
within sight of the enemj . and then, after the first discharge, spring 
up and close with him, in the death-grapple. In the account of 
one of his conflicts with a savage on the ice, Church states, that 
•ilic Indian seized him fast by the hair of his head, and endeavor- 
ed, by twisting, to break his neck. But though Mr Church's 
wound- had somewhat weakened him, and the Indian a stout fel- 
low, yet he held him in play, and twisted the Indian's neck as well, 
and, taking the advantage, while they hung by each other's hair. 
gave him notorious bunts in the face, with his head. But in the 
heat of the scuffle, they heard the ice break with somebody corn- 
in- apace to them. Church concluded there was help for one or 
the other of them, but was doubtful which of them must now re- 
cm e the fatal blow. Anon, somebody comes up, who proves to 
be a friendl) Indian. Without speaking a word, he felt them out, 
(for it was so dark he could not distinguish them by sight, but one 
was clothed and the other naked), and feeling where Mr Church's 
hands were fastened in the Indian's hair, with one blow settled his 
hatchet in between them, and thus ended the strife.' Such wi- 
the price at which victory was to be bought; — the horrors thai 
wailed on defeat and captivity, musl UOl here be told. 

If we turn our thoughts to the -rand design with which America 
was colonized, and the success with which, under Providence, thai 
design has been crowned, I own I find it difficult to express my- 
self in terms of moderation. When I compare our New-England, 
at the present day. with the New-England of our fathers, a centu- 
ry and a half ago; the New-England on which this morning's sun 
rose, with that of the day we commemorate ; when I consider this 
a! M mi la i ice and prosperity, — these fertile fields, these villages, crowd- 
ed with a population instinct with activity, hope, and enjoymenl ; 
when I look at the hills cultivated, or covered with flocks, to their 
summits, and onl) so much of the foresl remaining as ministers to 
the convenience and use of man ; when I see the roads, the bridges, 
the canals, the railways, which spread their busy net-work over 
the face of the countr) . quick< ning into intensity the exchangi - ol 
business, and the intercourse of men ; when I seethe intellectual, 
moral, and relig \ ih of the community, — it- establishments, 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 619 

its institutions, its social action, and reflect that all this life, enjoy- 
ment and plenty are placed under the invisible protection of the 
public peace ; when I consider, further, that what we see, and 
hear, and feel, and touch, of all these blessings, is perhaps the 
smallest part of them ; that, by the force of our example, by the 
blessed sympathy of light and truth, the glad tidings of political, 
of moral, and religious revival are destined to spread to distant 
regions, and flow down to the remotest generations, out of the liv- 
ing fountain which has been opened here ; — my heart melts within 
me for grief, that they, the high-soul ed and long-suffering fathers, 
— they, the pioneers of the mighty enterprise, — they, the founders 
of the glorious temple, must die before the sight of all these bless- 
ings. Oh, that we could call them back, to see the work of their 
hands ! Oh, that our poor strains of gratitude could penetrate their 
tombs ! Oh, that we could quicken into renewed consciousness 
the brave and precious dust that moulders beneath our feet. — Oh, 
that they could rise up in the midst of us, the hopeful, the valiant, 
the self-devoted, and graciously accept these humble offices of 
commemoration ! But though they tasted not the fruit, they shall 
not lose the praise of their sacrifice and toils. I read in your eyes, 
that they shall not be defrauded of their renown. This mighty 
concourse bears witness to the emotions of a grateful posterity. 
Yon simple monument shall rise a renewed memorial of their 
names. On this sacred spot, where the young, the brave, the pa- 
triotic, poured out their life-blood in defence of that heritage which 
. has descended to us, we this day solemnly bring our tribute of 
gratitude. Ages shall pass away ; the majestic tree which over- 
shadows us shall wither and sink before the blast, and we, who are 
now gathered beneath it, shall mingle with the honored dust we 
eulogize ; but the ' Flower of Essex ' shall bloom in undying re- 
membrance ; and with every century, these rites of commemora- 
tion shall be repeated, as the lapse of time shall continually develop, 
in richer abundance, the fruits of what was done and suffered by 
our fathers ! 



620 KVERETT'S ORATIONS. 



Note to page 607. 
I have been favored with the following list of those who fell 
with Captain Lothrop, kindly furnished me by Rev. Joseph B. 
Felt, whose profound acquaintance with the antiquities ofMassa- 
chusetts is known to the public. Mr Felt observes, that the 
aames in the list are given by him as spell in the original, which 
appears to be from the hand of an illiterate writer. The list was 
copied two or three years ago, from a paper in the Secretary of 
State's office in Boston. 

Ia$1 of those slain at Bloody Brook, I8//1 September, (O. S.) 1675. 

Capt. Thomas Laythrop, Sergeant Thomas Smith, Samuel Stevens, John Hobs, 
f/isirich ; Dame] Button, Salem; John I larriman, Thomas Bayley, Ezekiel Sawier, 
Salem ; Jacoh Kilborne, Thomas -Manning, Ipswich ; Jacob Waynwritt, Ipswich ; 
Benjamin Roper do.; John Bennett, .Winchester ; Thos. Menter, Caleb Kimball, 
Ipswich; Thomas Hobs, Ipswich; Robert Homes, Edward Traske, Salem; 
Richard Lambert, Salem; Josiah Dodge, Beverly; Peter Woodbeny, Beverly; 
Joseph Balch, Beverly; Samuel Wmtteridge, Ipswich; William Dew, Serg't Sam- 
ael Stevens, Samuel Crumpton, John Plum, Thomas Buckley, Sah 
Ropes, Salem ; Joseph King, Thomas Alexander, Francis Friende, Abel Oseph, 
John Litheate, Samuel Hadson, Adam Clarke, Ephraim Pearah, Robert Wilson, 
; Stephen Welman, Salem; Benjamin Farnell, Solomon Alley, Lynn; 
John Merrik, Robert Hinsdall, Samuel Hinsdall, Barnabas llin-dall, John Hinsdall, 
Joseph Gilbert, John A 11 in. Manchester ; Joshua Carter, Manchester; John Bar- 
nard, James Tufts, Salem; Jonathan Plympton, Philip Barsham, Thomas Weller, 
William Snioade, Zohi'diah Williams, Eliakim Marshall, James .Mudge, George 
Cole. 

Three of Captain .Moseley's men, when he went to relieve Cap- 
tain Lothrop, were killed; only two of their names are Legible, 
Peter Barron and John Oates. — The same day two were killed at 
Northampton, Praiswer Turner, Uzacahoy Sluti kapeer. 



APPENDIX.* 



Commemoration of the Massacre of Capt. Lothrop's Company at 
Bloody Brook, in Deerfield. 

This massacre, by Philip's Indians, on the 18th of September, 
1675 (old style,) has long excited the attention of the antiquarian 
traveller, as well as the people of Deerfield and its vicinity; and 
many have been desirous that a monument should be erected to 
the memory of the fallen heroes. With this object in view, a 
number of inhabitants of Deerfield, Conway, Shelburn, Green- 
field, and Gill, which now cover the territory formerly embraced 
by the original township of Deerfield, held a meeting, at which it 
was voted to commemorate the approaching anniversary of Loth- 
rop's battle on the 30th of September, 1835. 

A committee was then appointed to make the necessary ar- 
rangements, and another to examine the battle-ground, and, if 
possible, to ascertain the place of interment of Lothrop and his 
men, who, by some historians, as well as traditional accounts, 
are said to have been deposited in one grave, by the corps under 
Major Treat and Captain Moseley, the day after the disaster. 

A small monument had been erected near the spot, by the 
early settlers of Deerfield, which had nearly disappeared ; but 
the spot was still known. Guided by this, and information ob- 
tained from an elderly gentleman of an adjacent town, the com- 
mittee had the satisfaction to discover the grave. The bones 
were found much decayed, or rather changed to terrene sub- 
stances, still retaining their primitive forms, with some degree of 
solidity, yet easily crumbled to dust by pressure of the fingers, 
and generally exhibiting a chocolate color, and often that of a 
bright scarlet, in masses of dark earth. 

The cap-stone of the old monument had been preserved, and a 
dwelling-house built near the spot, by Stephen Whitney, Esq. 

* Abridged from the original edition. 



622 I I ERETT'S ORATIONS. 

The grave found is directly in front of this house, on the cast side 
of the stage road through Bloody Brook street; and is to be 
marked l>\ a stone laid level with the surface of the ground. 

The site selected for the new monument is a small distance 
north of the grave, on the west side of the street, near the margin 
dt'a morass, in which the Indians formed their ambuscade, and at 
the point where the attack on Lothrop commenced. The ground 
has been purchased, and ;i deed in trust obtained by several 
patriotic gentlemen of Bloody Brook village. When the monu- 
ment is completed, it is to be surrounded by ornamental trees, 
and the ground will then present an open space, replete with in- 
teresting associations. 

The Committee of Arrangements having engaged the Hon. 
Edward Everett to deliver the address, on Wednesday, the 30th 
of September, 1835, the day of the anniversary of the battle, the 
village of Bloody Brook was early thronged with people from 
Deerfield and the adjacent towns, and some from the neighbor- 
ing States. At 11 o'clock, A. M., a procession was formed in 
front of Russell's hotel, headed by a military escort, with a band 
of music, and proceeded to the ground assigned for the monu- 
ment, where a volley was fired by the escort. 

\tter the corner-stone was laid, the Rev. Mr Fesscnden, of 
Deerfield. addressed the throne of grace, and the following brief 
addros was delivered by <»en. E. Hoyt: 

I'i.i row Citizens, — The practice of erecting monuments to 
commemorate the exploits of the heroes who have shed their 
blood in the service of their country, is now common wherever 
refinement of intellect has kept pace with other improvements. 
In Europe, when her gallant sons have strewed the ground in 
martial strife, often, indeed in a cause no better than the inordi- 
nate ambition of her kings, 

* Fame spreads her broad pinions their exploits t" tell, 
While tin' smooth chiseled hust their resemblance cherished, 

And well sculptured urns mark tin place where thej I'll." 

And -hall Americans — free-born enlightened Americans, bestow 
less honors on the heroes who gallantl) shed then- blood in de- 
fence of their border-men, at a time when their military efforts 
wire feeble, and their number.- few ? Forbid it. Patriotism! — 
Forbid it. Justii i ' 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 623 

Too long have the valuable men, who fell on this ground, 
slumbered in obscurity — lost to the world. This day, (I rejoice 
to see it,) will remove the ingratitude which cold apathy has so 
long suffered to exist. The corner-stone of a monument to their 
memory is now laid, and may it be the foundation of a pile, firm 
as yonder peak ; imperishable, so long as bravery and noble ex- 
ploits shall be revered. 

We assemble, my fellow citizens, not only to lay this stone, 
but to commemorate an event which occurred on this ground on 
the 18th of September, 1675, old style, which, according to the 
Georgian calendar, corresponds with the 30th of the present 
month. At that time the country here was wild and waste, thick- 
ly covered with its native woods, and no settlements had been 
made by the English, within the present county of Franklin, ex- 
cepting at the north village of Deerfield and at Northfield; and in 
both places the inhabitants were few, and exposed to the attacks 
of the Indians. 

During Philip's war, military operations were frequent in this 
part of the State, and in some instances disastrous. The massa- 
cre of Capt. Lothrop's company on this ground, by the fierce 
chief and his merciless allies, was of this description. A detail 
of the horrid scene, I leave to the orator, who is to favor us 
with an address from the centre of the ground, on which the 
young men of Essex met their tragic fate. But a short notice of 
the commanding officer, which has been obtained from various 
sources, I trust, will not be deemed intrusive. 

Capt. Thomas Lothrop was one of the early emigrants from 
England, who took up his residence in Beverly, then a part of 
Salem, in the county of Essex. Of his early employments I am 
not informed ; but in 1634 he was made a freeman ; in 1644 he 
was a lieutenant under Capt. Hawthorn, and in 1654, a captain 
under Major Sedgwick, at the capture of St Johns and Port Royal. 

Before Beverly was set off from Salem, he was a representa- 
tive to the General Court from the latter town, for the years 1647 
— 1653 and 1664, and held other important offices. In 1668, when 
Beverly was incorporated, he was chosen a selectman, and re- 
elected to that office from year to year until his death ; and was 
also the representative from that town for several years, and ex- 
tensively employed in almost all its public affairs, both civil and 
ecclesiastical. He became a member of the church in Salem as 



»;-J1 I \ IMtETT'S ORATIONS. 

c;irl\ as 1636, and was one who foundetlthe ehttreh in Beverly in 
1667. lit had a sister Ellen who came with him from England, 
.•mil married the noted schoolmaster. Ezekiel Cheeirer, who was 
the preceptor of cttosl of the principal gentlemen of Boston, thru 
on the stage. 

( 'apt. Lothrop left a widow, but no children, and ;it his decease, 
about the age of 65 pears, his estate, consisting ot a hottse and 
thirty acres of land, granted to liim by the government, situated 
in that part of Beverly called Mackerel ('<>r,. was inherited h\ 
his sister and her husband, Mr Cheever. The estate is said 
now to be possessed by the descendants id" Thomas Woodbury. 

In the early part of Philip's war, Lothrop was selected to com- 
mand a company of infantry, in the Massachusetts forces, and or- 
dered to the western frontier of the then province. The com- 
pany was raised, or, as the historian. Hubbard, expresses it. 
culled out of the towns in the county of Essex, and consisted of 
young men from the most respectable families. At this time the 
country now embraced within the county of Worcester was in- 
fested by the hostile Indians, and Lothrop's company performed 
much hard service at and in the vicinity of Brookfield, and made 
extensive marches through the northern woods, in search of the 
enemy. When Philip, driven from that part ot the country, I'll 
hack to Connecticut river, ami took up his quarters at ami about 
.North lie Id. Lothrop's company and Capt. Beers', another from the 
eastern part of the province, were ordered to Hadley to protect 
the inhabitants in that quarter. A few days previous to the 
catastrophe at this place, these companies were ordered to pur- 
sue a body of Hatfield Indians, who had suddenly left their fort, 
in the north part of the town, to pun Philip on the river above. 
Coming up with them in a swamp, near the south point of Suj 

loaf hill, a skirmish ensued, in which the Indians were defeated 

and a number slain, with the loss of ten on the pari of the Eng- 
lish. Beers soon after tell into an anihuseade in the southerly 
part of Notthlield. and was killed, with mosl of his men. 

En the expedition from Hadley to Deerfield, to bring off the 

-ton - ai the latter place, Lothrop \ olunteercd his sersices. and 
on hi- return, fell into an ambuscade ofTOO or 800 Indians at this 

place, and was -lain, with the principal part of his men. The de- 
tails ofthe action, though hut taint pictures of the horrid scene, 

ma\ he found in the histories of Philip's war 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 625 

Not long after the massacre of Lothrop's company, our fa- 
thers, impelled by a laudable sympathy, erected a rude monument 
near this spot, intended to perpetuate the memory of the slain; 
but time has dilapidated it, and this stone is its only vestige. 

The recent discovery of the grave of the unfortunate men, and 
the erection of a new monument, will excite the sympathy of the 
traveller ; and the antiquary, while he shudders at the tragedy 
here acted, will find much to gratify his avidity at this Bloody 
Brook. Here he will behold the spot, where nearly one hundred 
young men, ' the flower of the county of Essex,' with their brave 
commander, crimsoned the ground with their blood, in the hazard- 
ous service of their country, and left their bones to mingle with 
their mother earth, and their names — sad fate of the warrior — 
to perish from recollection. 

Long have the residents of this soil traversed over the hallowed 
spot, unconscious that they were treading upon the ashes of the 
fallen heroes. The story of the sufferers, though often repeated 
by their fathers, had nearly lost its thrilling effects, and the 
peaceful aspect of the adjacent fields tells not, that once they 
were moistened with the pi'ecious blood of brave men. New in- 
quiries will now be excited, and future generations will point to 
this ground, and their children will know where their fathers bled 
and died to secure to them the rich boon they possess; where the 
nightly howl of the wolf, the scream of the panther, and the yell 
of the red warrior, pierced the ear from the dark tangled woods, 
and the shuddering mother with fearful hands barred the door of 
her log hut, and clasped her little ones to her bosom, imploring 
protecting aid, which man could not interpose. 

The men who fell on this ground, though unfortunate, fell not 
without a manly struggle. But assailed by a vast superiority of 
numbers, rushing furiously from their ' couched ambuscade,' with 
savage yells and bloody intent, vain was military prowess. 
Strewed with dead and dying, the surrounding woods sent back 
the shrill war-whoop, intermingled with the last shrieks of the 
wounded heroes, writhing under the relentless tomahawk and 
scalping-knife, ' and shuddering pity ' left the sanguine field to 
the cannibal riots and frantic revels of the hirsute foe. 

From this day the heroes of Essex will be remembered by all 
' who are not indifferent and unmoved, when conducted over 
78 



626 I \ EBETT'S ORATIONS. 

ground that has been dignified by bravery and virtue.' Yes, my 
friends, the memory of these long lost heroes will be indelibly 
engra\ <<l <>n our hearts ; and 

' Still, still, as they sleep, freed from war's dread commotion, 
Their offspring for ages around them Bhall weep ; 
And the tears of their sons, as thev kneel in devotion, 

Shall hallow the turf u here their forefathers sleep.' 



SPEE C H 

ON THE SUBJECT OF THE WESTERN RAIL-ROAD, DELIVERED IN 
FANEUIL HALL, 7tH OCTOBER, 1835.* 



Mr E. Everett observed that nothing would have induced 
him to present himself before his fellow citizens, at so late an hour, 
but his engagement to the committee charged with the preparations 
for holding the meeting. The gentlemen who had preceded him, 
had exhausted the subject, and his fellow citizens in this vast as- 
sembly satisfied, he was well persuaded, with what they had heard, 
were now desirous, by an earnest and unanimous vote, to prepare 
for action. But he had been requested to address them on the 
subject, and he was unaffectedly of the opinion, that, next to the 
great questions of liberty and independence, the doors of Faneuil 
Hall were never thrown open on an occasion of greater moment to 
the people of the city and the State. 

But, sir, continued Mr E., I do not approach this subject of an 
enterprise which promises great and beneficial changes to the com- 
munity, with feelings of despondency in reference to our present 
condition. I would, on the contrary, speak the language of confi- 
dence, hope, and self-assured resource. The people of Massachu- 
setts and the citizens of Boston, as the capital of the Common- 

* The object of the meeting was to take measures to complete the subscription 
to the capital stock of the rail-road, to the amount of two millions of dollars. The 
object was eifected; and in the course of the ensuing winter, an act passed the Leg- 
islature of Massachusetts, authorizing an additional subscription of one million of 
dollars, on behalf of the State. 



628 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

wealth, have been favored with as large a share of blessings as 
ever fell to the lot of anj people; — and the greatest of all these 
blessings is the sagacity with which they are accustomed to per- 
ceive, — what industry, and energy, and enterprise can do, to sup- 
ply thai which nature leaves to the cooperation of man. For 
carrying on the foreign trade and the fisheries, we have every thing 
that the heart of man can desire ; — for agriculture, we have the 
soil and the climate best adapted. — not to the raising for exporta- 
tion of the great agricultural staples, — but for the support of a fru- 
gal and industrious yeomanry ; for manufactures, we are l>\ this 
last circumstance admirably prepared, as we are, in all other res- 
pects, able to compete, in man} branches of manufacturing indus- 
try, with an\ other people on earth. In short, sir, we want noth- 
ing but what we are able ourselves, with enterprise, energy, and 
the wise application of capital, to acquire; — and I have greatly 
mistaken the character of the people of Massachusetts, town or 
country, if any such wants remain long unsupplied. On the con- 
trary, it is their peculiar characteristic, by the use of capital, by 
energy, and enterprise, not merely to supplj what are commonly 
Ailed natural defects, but to open mines of wealth, where others 
see only the marks of barrenness. This trait of our charactea 
strikes all observers. It was observed by the President of the 
United State-, on his visit to this part of the country a year or two 
since, that what struck him mosl in New-England, were the marks 
of plenty and comfort on a soil, which in some places seemed little 
else than a mass of rocks. Itisevenso; and if (over no small part 
of our beloved native State) nature, like an unkind step-dame, w hen 
her children ask for bread, has given them a stone, by their frugali- 
ty, industry, and enterprise, they have turned the very stones back 
into bread. 1 speak literally. The gentleman from Springfield, 
before me. (Hon. G. Bliss, President of the Senate), was good 
enough to >cm\ me a pamphlet this morning, from which it appear-. 
that thousands of ton- of the marbles of Berkshire are senl to Phila- 
delphia, and sold to advantage, although their own quarries lie 
within sixteen miles ; and the Cit) Hall in IVew-York is chiefly 
built from the same Berkshire marble. In like manner the gran- 
ite from the quarrie of Quincy, bj the almosl magical virtue of 
three miles of rail-road i now building up tin- state!) piles of New- 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. (329 

York, Philadelphia, and New-Orleans. Look at the outside of 
Cape Ann, — Sandy Bay, Pigeon Cove, Halibut Point, and Squam, 
— a region, where the very genius of sterility has taken his abode, 
if there is such a genius, — (there ought to be, for nothing so sharp- 
ens the ingenuity of man), — and behold it converted, in the same 
way, by the industry, energy, frugality, of its substantial popula- 
tion, and the judicious application of capital, into a region of 
thrift and plenty ! 

But the great thing wanting to the prosperity of Massachusetts 
is communication with the West. The internal commerce of 
this country is prodigious ; and of all that part which is accessible 
to us, on the present system of communication, we have an ample 
share. With the South, we have, in our freighting and coasting 
trade, every thing that can be asked. With the South-West, in 
reference to all that part of commerce which is calculated to seek 
the route by sea to New-Orleans, we have nothing more to desire ; 
— and the intercourse already established in this way, with the 
whole region drained by the Mississippi and its tributaries, is most 
extensive, various, and mutually profitable. In ascending the 
Mississippi and its tributaries, in 1829, on which occasion 1 was 
on board several boats, 1 continually saw casks, packages, and 
bales, in all of them, which I knew came from New-England, by 
their marks, — by the mode of doing up, — by a certain inde- 
scribable something, in which to a true Yankee eye there is no 
mistake. A distinguished gentleman, of Pittsburgh, told me there 
was a regular battle between the Boston nails and the Pittsburgh 
nails, on the Ohio river ; — the Boston nails coming all the way 
round, and the Pittsburgh made on the spot, from Juniata iron ; 
and that, though the Pittsburgh nails sometimes fought their way 
down the river to Louisville, the Bostonians, at times, had driven 
them up as far as Wheeling. I was informed by a respectable 
trading house in Pittsburgh, that they had, in the year preceding, 
imported two thousand barrels of pickled mackerel ; and I think I 
did not enter a public house in the West, to take a meal, morning, 
noon, or night, without seeing a pickled mackerel on the table. I re- 
member, a year or two ago, that one of my neighbors from Charles- 
town, who had emigrated to the north-west corner of Arkansas, — 
a spot not then even laid out into counties, — told me, that in that re- 



().'3() :r PT'S OB LTIONS. 

mote region, — the lasl foothold of civilization, where you have but 
one more Hep to make, to reach the domain of the wild Indian 
and tin' buffalo, — a settler did nol think himself well accoutred) 
withoul a lieominster axe. But, give him that, — give him, sir, 
that weapon which has broughl a wider realm into the pale of civ- 
ilization than the sword of Caesar or the sceptre of Justinian, — 
give him a narrow \ ankee a\e. — lie '11 hew his way with it to a 
living, in a season ; though I shrewdl) suspect, without the least 
disparagement of emigrants from other quarters, that after sending 
the Sfankee axe into the country, the best way to give it full effect 
would ho to send a little Yankee hour and sinew, to facilitate its 
use. 

But, sir, though by the way of New-Orleans, we have a consid- 
erable trade with the South-West, there is a vast region, which thai 
channel does not reach. A direct communication is greatly want- 
ed. This is -nii: want, daily hocoming more serious, and which 
musl he supplied. The destinies of the country, if 1 may use a 
language which sounds rather mystical, but which every one, I 
believe, understands, — the destinies of the country run East and 
West. Intercourse between the mighty interior West and the sea- 
coast, is the great principle of our commercial prosperity and polit- 
ical strength. Nature, in the aggregate, has done every thing that 
could he desired, to promote this intercourse, and art has done 
much to second her; but. as far as the single State of Massachu- 
setts is concerned, the course of the rivers from North to South, 
and of the mountains between which they How. deprives us of die 
share ^( the benefits of this intercourse which we should otherwise 
And this operation of natural causes has been aided by 
several important works of artificial communication, enumerated in 
the able report of the committee. The consequence is, thai a. very 
considerable part of the territory of Massachusetts ha-; its commer- 
cial interests in one direction, and in political and social relations 
in an i much mi. that, a- w e all. I am ure, heard with pain 

from ih" distinguished gentleman from Springfield, (.Mr I 
the feeling of State pride, which ought of all feelings that end in 
temporal bosom 

of a Mas ichusetts man, was daily growing weaker among the 
people of one of the most intelli ent and lubstantial portions 
- 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 631 

This commercial alienation has gone to a length, which I suspect 
the citizens of Boston are not generally aware of. The entire re- 
gion west of the hills of Berkshire communicates with New-York 
through the Hudson, — and the whole valley of the Connecticut, in 
and out of Massachusetts, communicates with Long Island Sound. 
I am afraid to say, in how large a part of Massachusetts I think a 
complete non-intercourse reigns with the capital ; hut I will state to 
you a fact, that lately fell beneath my personal observation. 
Having occasion, last week, to go to Deerfield, I took the north 
road from Worcester, through Templeton, Athol, and the country 
watered by Miller's river. If there is a spot in Massachusetts 
where one would feel himself entrenched, shut up, land-locked, in 
the very bosom of the Commonwealth, Athol Green, surrounded 
with its rising grounds, is that spot. And what, Mr President, do 
you think I saw ? We had scarce driven out of the village and 
were making our way along through South Orange and Erving's 
Grant, when I saw two wagons straining up a hill, — the horses' 
heads to the east, — the wagons laden with crates, casks, and bales 
of foreign merchandize, which had come from Liverpool, by the 
way of Hartford, from New-York ! I hold that, sir, a little too 
much for a Massachusetts man to contemplate without pain. 

Now, Mr President, this is the matter which we wish to put to 
rights. We do not. wish to deprive New-York of her trade ; but 
to regain our own. It is the object of this meeting to remedy 
principally this evil. To open a great route of communication be- 
tween the East and the West, by means of a rail-road from Boston 
to Albany, which with lateral routes, afterwards to be constructed, 
shall replace Boston in its natural position toward the trade of the 
interior. 

And here, perhaps, we shall be met by the general vague objec- 
tion, that it is impossible, by artificial works, to divert commerce 
from its great natural channels. Abstractions prove nothing 
There are two kinds of natural channels, — one sort made directly 
by the hand which made the world ; the other, constructed by man, 
in the intelligent exercise of the powers which his Creator has given 
him. It is as natural for a civilized man to make a rail-way or 
canal, as for a savage to descend a river in a bark canoe, or to cross 
from one fishing place to another, by a path through the woods. 



632 EVERETT'S ok\TIONS. 

The city of New- York, oo doubt, owes much to the noble river 
that unites her to Albain ; but she owes vastlj more in her greal 
artificial works of internal communication. The Hudson and the 
Mohawk, of themselves, unaided by art, so far from gathering in 
the commerce of the far West, would not monopolize that of one 
half tin' region west of Albany, within the State of New-York. 
How far is it from the head waters of the eastern branch of the 
Susquehannah, in Otsego lake, to the .Mohawk? Perhaps fifteen 
miles! I have stood on the high grounds, that overlook Harris- 
burgh in Pennsylvania, at a season of the year, before the Hudson 
was open, and seen the rafts, the flatboats, the canoes, the batteaux, 
the craft of un described shapes and unutterable names, following 
each other, tm the broad bosom of the Susquehannah, from morn- 
ing to night, bearing the produce of the interior of New- York, to a 
market in Chesapeake Bay ! The same holds of the south-west- 
ern corner of New-1 ork, which naturally is drained by the 
tributaries of the Ohio. 1 recollect thai at .New-Orleans, 1 saw a 
fiat-bottomed boat loaded with shingles. I asked its steersman 
whence hecame. He answered, fromOlean. Perhaps I ought to 
be ashamed to confess, that, at that time, I did not know where 
Olean was. I found, to my astonishment, il was a settlement in 
Cattaraugus county, New- York, on the Uleghanj river, a hundred 
and seventy or eighty miles north-east of Pittsburgh ! But, sir. to 
bring this wandering commerce back to herself, New-York has 
constructed her great artificial works. In this respect, Massachu- 
setts is naturally little, if any. worse oil' than New- York, [f New- 
York has a great navigable river, Massachusetts has. what New- 
York wants, a vast sea-coast. What both wanted was a great 
line of artificial communication, running inw ard to the W est. New- 
York has constructed hers, and has othermighty works of the same 
character in progress; and all that Massachusetts needs is, ly a 

Work of Very moderate extent, not merely to recover the trade of 

her own territory, but to acquire a lair share, a large, a growing 
mare, of the commerce of the boundle W 

"This, sir, is the objecl : to take our share, at some seasons of the 
year the first share, at all seasons a proportionate share of the 

whole business, not merely of the interior of the State of New-1 ork. 

but of that almost interminable region farther west, which now 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 633 

derives its supplies from the city of New- York. A great object 
surely ; — to a commercial eye in this community, the greatest that 
can be proposed. This, i repeat, is the object ; — and now what 
are the means which must be employed to effect it ? What are 
the means ? What are we to do 1 Are we to construct a canal 
from Albany to Buffalo ? No, it is made, and with it the Cham- 
plain canal to the north, and the numerous lateral works, on either 
side of the Erie canal ; as those which communicate w :, h the 
Oneida and Ontario lakes on the north of the line ; with the 
Seneca, the Cayuga and the Crooked lakes on the south ; the Che- 
mung and the Chenango canals, also on the south, and designed to 
rescue the commerce of that region from the grasp of the eastern 
branch of the Susquehannah, and the extensive artificial works, with 
which Pennsylvania has strengthened it. Are we, perhaps, for the 
more rapid transportation of passengers, obliged to construct a rail- 
road, parallel to the canal, from Albany to Buffalo ? No, it is done 
in part, and the rest is doing. Are we, by great and expensive 
works, to open the far and mighty west beyond Buffalo ? Not a 
mile of it, by land or water. Nature and man have done, or are 
doing it all. The great lakes stretch westward, the grand base line 
of operations. Then comes in, first, the Ohio canal from the 
mouth of the Scioto to Cleveland, wholly across the State. A 
parallel line of communication in Ohio, by canal and rail-road, 
through the Miami and Mad river country to Sandusky bay, comes 
next ; the canal, to Dayton, or beyond, is finished, the rail-road 
begun. Indiana, in the noble tier of the north-western States, 
comes next, with her projected canal to connect the Wabash with 
lake Erie ; and Illinois follows, with a similar communication, under- 
taken with the patronage of Congress and the state, to unite the 
Illinois river and through it the Mississippi with the southern ex- 
tremity of lake Michigan. All, all is done or doing. The country, 
by nature or art, is traversed, crossed, reticulated, (pardon me, sir, 
this long word ; the old ones are too short to describe these pro- 
digious works), with canals and rail -roads, rivers and lakes. The 
entire west is moving to meet us ; by water, land, and steam, they 
ride, they sail, they drive, they paddle, they whiz — they do all but 
fly down toward us. They are even now gathering at Albany, a 
mighty host, with all their goods, looking over into good old Massa- 
79 



634 EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 

chusetts, desirous, eager to come. They have sent these most re- 
spectable gentlemen, t<> ask if we will take them. They have dug 
their own canals, buill their own rail-roads, come at their own 
charges, and there the) are, an overshadowing army, waiting to 
hear, if we arc willing they should make a peaceful crusade, a pro- 
fitable inroad into our domain, bringing the fruits of their industry 
and taking ours in return. I. for one, sir, am prepared to go 
and meet them, and I am sine my fellow citizens are of the same 
mind. 

Urn is there nothing left for us to do? Next to nothing, sir: I 
am almost ashamed to state how little, when I consider how long 
the work has remained undone. It is not to open a rail-road from 
our western frontier to Albany. That is doing by the citizens of 
New- York. Charters of incorporation have been obtained from 
Albany and from Hudson to West Stockbridge, and the work (I 
believe) commenced ; and another charter is solicited from Troy to 
the same point. That piece therefore is provided for ; it is about 
forty miles. On the other end of the line, from Boston to Worces- 
ter, forty-two miles, the rail-road is in high operation. All that 
remains for us now to do is to complete this little part which lies 
between Worcester and Stockbridge. This is the question: Shall 
we make this little piece of road, for the sake of <ji\iiiL r to Massa- 
chusetts, to Berkshire, to Old Hampshire, to Worcester, to Middle- 
si \. to Boston, to our whole manufacturing, commercial, ashing in- 
terest, the benefit of a direct connection with the inimitable West? 
Shall we make these few miles of rail-mad. for the sake of setting 
down everj western trader from lake Erie to the headwaters of 
the Missouri, who wants a hale of domestic goods, in Commercial 
street. Kilbj street, or Liberty square? Don't talk of reaching to 
Buffalo, si,-; talk of the falls of St Anthony and the Council BlufB. 
Sir, if we had been told that we must construcl the line of artificial 
communication, the whole way, we should have thought, thai (could 
we pos>ihl\ command the capital), the benefits which would flow 
from the expenditure would well warrant the outlay. New-York 
has practically shown that shft thinks so ; and the western country, 
which is looking to us to take up and complete our small part of 
the work, may well apply to us the words of the servanl oi the 
Syrian Captain — ' If the prophet had bid thee do sonn great thing, 
wouldt st thou not have done it:' 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 



635 



Suppose these hundred and eighteen miles, (for that is all which 
remains), completed, how shall we stand? Albany and every 
point of the United States west of it, and communicating through 
it with the Atlantic, are equi-distant from New-York city and 
Boston. Remember that, Mr Chairman : — when we are discoura- 
ged by the comparison of natural and artificial means of communi- 
cation, let us bear in mind that, by nature, it is no farther from 
Boston to all this field of business, — this world of population and 
trade, — than from New- York. Secondly, let us reflect, that, the 
distance being equal, it will be travelled in one case by a river, 
navigated by steamboats ; in the other, by rail-road cars, moved by 
locomotive steam-engines. In speed, the advantage in favor of the 
latter, may be taken at one third ; which will be decisive as to 
passengers, other things being equal. For merchandise, the river 
will have an advantage in freight, not overbalancing the advantage 
of an additional market, and that the first market for all that part 
of business of which Boston is the natural emporium. This will 
be the state of things while the river is open. While, for three 
or four months, at least, of the year, the river is closed, the 
rail-road will monopolize the travel and the trade ; and Boston 
will be New-York. I am as far, however, from thinking, as from 
wishing, that New- York should be injured. As for destroying the 
commerce of New-York, it will be destroyed when the Atlantic 
ocean evaporates, and the Hudson river dries up. It will be no 
detriment to her, that the commercial world behind her should be 
in full exercise and healthy action, in the winter season, rather than 
lie dormant and torpid ; — and with her advantageous position, both 
for foreign and domestic trade, whatsoever benefits her neighbors, 
and particularly whatsoever benefits the great interior behind her, 
will benefit her. It would be of no advantage to New- York, to 
have Boston droop and decline. 

Sometimes, sir, the best mode of judging of the value of a work 
is to ask how we should be affected by its loss, if, after possessing 
it, it should be taken away. Suppose we had at this moment a 
navigable river from Boston to Albany, or a canal, and it should, 
by some convulsion of nature, sink or dry up. Would it not be 
thought the direst of calamities ? Suppose we had a railway, — a 
natural railway, — a level ridge from Boston bay to the confluence 
of the Mohawk and the Hudson, laid down by the hand of Provi- 



636 I \ BRETT'S ORATIONS. 

dence, and ready for use ; and the philosophers had been able, b\ 
their tables and instruments, to predict some great catastrophe, 
which would destroy it, and had foretold the day when the earth 
would open and swallow it up. Should we not regard it almost as 
the day of approaching doom, and be ready to open our churches, 
and fall on our knees, and implore a merciful Providence to avert 
the calamity? And how does the case differ, sir, in a practical 
point of view, between the loss of a great blessings proceeding 
from an overwhelming natural convulsion, and its want, arising 
from our ow ii neglect and apathy? 

Sir, I have almost done. I have trespassed much too long on 
your patience; but I will add a few words more on another aspi cl 
of the question; — one to which, in this place, in Faneuil Hall, 
although it is a view of the subject remote from financial questions, 
I may, in common with the gentlemen who have preceded me, 
with propriety allude. The great political basis of all our prosper- 
ity is Union ; the great political danger that menaces us is Dis- 
union. All else can be borne, if we can avoid this calamity ; and 
if this is fated to befal us, all our other blessings will turn to dust 
and ashes in our grasp. The rapid growth of our country, the 
prodigious population and resources of single sections, tend to dis- 
union. I am sorry to say, that on the floor of Congress, 1 have 
heard calculations of the capacity of individual States to support 
themselves as independent governments. 1 know of nothing so 
well calculated to counteract the centrifugal tendency, as to increase 
tin' facilities for intercourse. They will prove not merely avenues 
of business, but pathways of intelligence and social feeling. They 
will make the distant near and the many one, for all the purposes 
of defence, strength, and -nod neighborhood. It is the great pre- 
rogative of science and art, applied to the business of life, to con- 
quer the obstacles of time and place ; to redress the wron 
nature. By promoting the rapid circulation of knowledge', the 
prompt communication of intelligence, we shall carry on and per- 
fect tin; noble work HERE begun by men. >ouie of whose portraits 
are now looking down upon us. iNo subject, after the liberty of 
hi- eonutn . lay nearer to the head of Washington, than the open- 
ing of a greal line of communication between the East and West. 
It WR9 the verj fel Subjecl to which he tinned his attention, at the 
close of the revolutionary war. 



EVERETT'S ORATIONS. 637 

I hold in my hand an extract from a letter, written by the Fa- 
ther of his Country, in 1784. I would not, while the bell is ring- 
ing for nine o'clock, obtrude with any lighter authority, on the au- 
dience. But who will not listen to the counsels of Washington, on 
the question before us ? 

' I have lately,' says he, ' made a tour through the lakes George 
and Champlain, as far as Crown Point ; then returning to Schen- 
ectady, I proceeded up the Mohawk river to Fort Schuyler, crossed 
over to Wood Creek, which empties into Oneida lake, and affords a 
water communication with Ontario. I then traversed the country 
to the head of the eastern branch of the Susquehannah, and view- 
ed the lake of Otsego, and the portage between that lake and the 
Mohawk river, at Canajoharie. Prompted by these actual obser- 
vations, I could not help taking a more contemplative and exten- 
sive view of the vast inland navigation of these United States, and 
could not but be struck with the immense diffusion and importance 
of it ; and with the goodness of that Providence which has dealt 
his favors to us with so profuse a hand. Would to God, we may 
have wisdom enough to improve them ! ' 

Such, sir, is the voice of him, whose sagacity in all the civil 
concerns of life, was equal to his patriotism in council, and con- 
duct in the field ; — and to this affecting prayer of Washington, 
who can deem it irreverent to add, Let all the people say Amen ! 



Erratum. — Page 426, seventh Hue from the bottom, for feelings read foun- 
tains. 












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